Federal health officials on Jan. 6 announced that Brad Smith, most recently the chief operating officer of Anthem’s diversified business group, will serve as director of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI).
Smith will also serve as a senior advisor for value-based transformation to Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, according to a statement released from HHS and CMS. Prior to Anthem, Smith was the co-founder and CEO of Aspire Health, a healthcare company focused on providing home-based palliative care services to patients facing serious illnesses.
Created under the Obama administration, CMMI is charged with piloting, testing and evaluating alternative payment models—such as bundled payment models, for example—with the intent of increasing quality and efficiency, while reducing program expenditures under Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
“Brad will help HHS and CMS continue and accelerate the value-based transformation work that we have begun under President Trump,” Azar said in a statement. “Paying for outcomes rather than procedures through CMMI models is an important tool for the value-based transformation of healthcare that President Trump has prioritized. Brad has impressive experience with innovative care delivery and paying for value,” he added.
Smith, 37, an entrepreneur from Tennessee, said in an interview with The Tennessean that his core goals will be around figuring out how to “set up the right set of incentives for providers to do the right thing for patients and to empower patients to get better care.”
Last April, HHS announced a set of voluntary value-based payment models for primary care physicians under the label “Primary Cares,” comprised of several voluntary payment options focused on serving patients with complex, chronic conditions and those with serious illness. Smith’s former company, Aspire Health, was part of the coalition that that worked to develop and champion the new models.
In a statement applauding Smith’s nomination, Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said, “Brad has exactly the right experience to lead a center charged with coming up with innovative ways to lower healthcare costs and improve quality. He has founded a successful healthcare company and knows how state and federal governments work…”
Last July, news broke that previous CMMI Director Adam Boehler would be leaving the department after serving in that role for a little more than a year. Boehler ended up leaving CMMI to head up the recently formed International Development Finance Corporation, an independent agency of the U.S. government that provides financing for private development projects.
