Lee Fleisher, M.D., a professor at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, has been named Chief Medical Officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and Director of the CMS Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ).
The CCSQ is responsible for executing all national clinical, quality, and safety standards for healthcare facilities and providers, as well as establishing coverage determinations for items and services that improve health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries.
Fleisher replaces Kate Goodrich, M.D., as chief medical officer of CMS. She departed the agency in January for a position with insurer Humana.
A professor of both anesthesiology and critical care, and medicine at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, Fleisher served as Chair of Anesthesiology and Critical Care from 2004 to July of this year. A former member of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics Executive Board, he will continue to be an LDI Senior Fellow while on leave from Penn. His research focuses on perioperative cardiovascular risk assessment and reduction, measurement of quality of care, decision making, implementation of cultural change and health policy.
"As director of CCSQ," said CMS Administrator Seema Verma in a statement, "Dr. Fleisher will use his prior experience to provide overall leadership to CCSQ while focusing on CMS’s continued efforts to ensure the safety and security of America's nursing homes, improving quality and safety in our nation’s health care facilities and reducing burdensome regulations to give providers more time to care for their patients."
A member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) since 2007, Fleisher has been the recipient of numerous federal, industry and foundation grants related to his research. He has published more than 175 original articles, over 200 editorials, reviews and book chapters, and nine books. He has often collaborated with anthropologists, sociologists, as well as faculty from law, business and nursing.
The former Treasurer of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Finance Committee of the National Quality Forum, Fleisher was a member of the Care Transformation Forum (CTF) of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN).
Currently, he is an Affiliated Faculty member of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, pursuing a Master in Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
