GAO Makes MedPAC Appointments

WASHINGTON, May 29 -- The Government Accountability Office issued the following news release:

Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), today announced the appointment of five new members to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). He also reappointed one current member.

"MedPAC provides valuable insight and advice to Congress on myriad Medicare issues," Dodaro said. "I was heartened by the number of highly-qualified applicants who expressed interest in joining the Commission, and am pleased to announce these latest appointments."

The newly appointed members are Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, Professor of Medicine and Population Health at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas in Austin, TX; Marjorie Ginsburg, BSN, MPH, Sacramento, CA; Jonathan Jaffery, MD, MS, MMM, Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, WI; Jonathan Perlin, MD, PhD, MSHA, President of Clinical Services and Chief Medical Officer of HCA in Nashville, TN; and Jaewon Ryu, MD, JD, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Geisinger Health System in Danville, PA. Their terms will expire in April 2021.

The reappointed member, whose term will also expire in April 2021, is Susan Thompson, RN, Senior Vice President of Integration and Optimization with UnityPoint Health in West Des Moines, IA.

Congress established MedPAC in 1997 to analyze access to care, cost and quality of care, and other key issues affecting Medicare. MedPAC advises Congress on payments to providers in Medicare's traditional fee-for-service programs and to health plans participating in the Medicare Advantage program. The Comptroller General is responsible for naming new commission members.

Commissioners whose terms will expire in April 2019 are Amy Bricker, RPh, Vice President, Supply Chain Strategy, Express Scripts, Inc., St. Louis, MO; Jon B. Christianson, PhD (Vice Chair), James A. Hamilton Chair in Health Policy and Management, Division of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; Brian DeBusk, PhD, CEO, DeRoyal Industries, Powell, TN; Paul Ginsburg, PhD, Leonard Schaeffer chair in Health Policy Studies, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC and Professor of Health Policy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA; Bruce Pyenson, FSA, MAAA, Principal and Consulting Actuary, Milliman, Inc., New York, NY; and Pat Wang, JD, CEO, Healthfirst, New York, NY.

Commissioners whose terms will expire in April 2020 are Kathy Buto, MPA, Arlington, VA; Francis "Jay" Crosson, MD (Chair), Los Altos, CA; David Grabowski, PhD, Professor in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Dana Gelb Safran, ScD, Chief Performance Measurement and Improvement Officer and Senior Vice President, Enterprise Analytics, at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Boston, MA; and Warner Thomas, MBA, President and CEO of the Ochsner Health System, New Orleans, LA.

For more information about MedPAC, contact James Mathews, MedPAC's executive director, at (202) 220-3700. Other calls should be directed to Chuck Young in GAO's Office of Public Affairs at (202) 512-4800. The official announcement will be published in the Federal Register.

Brief biographies of the new commission members follow:

Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, is a Professor of Medicine and Population Health at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, where she provides leadership on efforts addressing the social determinants of health, including innovative projects on community health, technology, and medical care. Prior to joining the University of Texas, Dr. DeSalvo was dually appointed as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Health and the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. DeSalvo received her medical and public health degrees from Tulane University School of Medicine, where she also completed her residency and fellowship in internal medicine. She has a master's degree in clinical epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Marjorie Ginsburg, BSN, MPH, is the Founding Executive Director of the Center for Healthcare Decisions, Inc., which she ran from 1994 through mid-2016. In that role, she was responsible for the design, implementation, and evaluation of projects and programs that fostered civic engagement around health policy issues that affected individuals and society. Among the policy issues Ms. Ginsburg studied were end-of-life care, health plan benefits design, and strategies to reduce overuse of unnecessary medical care. Ms. Ginsburg currently volunteers as a Medicare counselor with the state's SHIP program (called the Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program) in Sacramento, CA.

Jonathan Jaffery, MD, MS, MMM, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, WI, and a practicing nephrologist. Dr. Jaffery serves as the Chief Population Health Officer at UW Health and as the President and CEO at UW Health ACO, Inc., where he is responsible for the overall development, coordination, and implementation of UW Health's population health management strategy. Dr. Jaffery received his medical degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and completed his residency and fellowship training at the University of Vermont. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow and has graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

Jonathan Perlin, MD, PhD, MSHA, is the President of Clinical Services and Chief Medical Officer of HCA Healthcare in Nashville, TN. In that role, he has leadership responsibility for clinical services and improving performance at HCA's hospitals and other sites of service. Prior to joining HCA, Dr. Perlin was Under Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Perlin is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has faculty appointments at Vanderbilt University and Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Perlin received his PhD in pharmacology and his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he also completed his residency training in internal medicine.

Jaewon Ryu, MD, JD, is the Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Geisinger, an integrated healthcare system headquartered in Danville, PA and comprised of hospitals, employed providers, a health plan, a medical school, and research and innovation centers. Before going to Geisinger, he served as President of Integrated Care Delivery at Humana and previously held leadership roles at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System and at Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Ryu received his undergraduate education at Yale University and his medical and law degrees from the University of Chicago, after which he completed his residency training in emergency medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.