Supporting patient privacy
by David DeKunder
Erika Perry (M.Jur. ’21) started the Master of Jurisprudence Program at the St. Mary’s University School of Law to gain the knowledge she needed to implement a strong medical billing and coding compliance program at her job — a career path that runs in her bloodline.
Perry said earning her M.Jur. with a concentration in Health Care Compliance prepared her for her current position at the University of Texas at San Antonio. At UT San Antonio’s Health Science Center campus, Perry is the director of coding and billing compliance in Institutional Compliance and Privacy. In that role, she oversees a comprehensive medical billing and coding compliance program that ensures clinical and administrative operations at the institution adhere to federal and state regulations.
As of Aug. 1, 2025, the degree Perry earned is now known as the Master of Legal Studies (M.L.S.) for future graduates.
Before starting at St. Mary’s Law in 2019, Perry was the coding manager for University Health in San Antonio. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Health Information Management from Texas State University in San Marcos, Perry never thought she would go back to school, but her grandparents and her father convinced her to continue her education to increase her knowledge and advance in her career.
A family affair
Perry got into health care administration at a young age by helping her grandmother, Minerva Montalvo, who was the health information director at the county hospital in her hometown of Eagle Pass.
“She often took me to her office,” Perry said. “I would file medical records. I would sit with her coding team and watch them do what they do. They taught me from a very young age. I was like 6-, 7-, 8-years-old filing medical records away, helping her with whatever she needed me to do. So, that right there is what drove me into health care administration. It was her foundation that put that path forward for me to know this is what I want to do.”
“What makes Erika’s story especially meaningful is not just her success, but its fidelity to her original vision. In her application, she wrote about wanting the confidence, skills and legal grounding necessary to contribute meaningfully to a health system undergoing transformation.”
— Shannon Sevier (J.D. ’07, M.P.A. ’21)
Perry credited Shannon Sevier (J.D. ’07, M.P.A. ’21), Assistant Dean for Graduate Law Programs, who taught the Fundamentals of the American Legal System course at St. Mary’s Law, for pushing and motivating her to complete her graduate degree.
“She was a tough, stringent professor, but it is what I needed to shape me and get ready for what I was about to learn for the rest of the program,” Perry said. “Her learning environment was always welcoming. She welcomed questions, she answered them, and she always made herself available to us. I couldn’t have appreciated that more. She really pushed me to do better.”
Sevier said that, as a student, Perry distinguished herself through preparation, brought an intellectual curiosity and had a clear understanding of how law works in real institutional settings.
“What makes Erika’s story especially meaningful is not just her success, but its fidelity to her original vision,” Sevier said. “In her application, she wrote about wanting the confidence, skills and legal grounding necessary to contribute meaningfully to a health system undergoing transformation. She articulated a desire to ensure that compliance serves patients, protects data integrity and upholds trust. She has done exactly that.”
