Ms. Smith is a noted expert on health care policy and analysis including health insurance coverage and coverage expansion, delivery of care to underserved populations, government health programs, access to care, payment incentives to providers to improve quality and reduce costs, health system financing, delivery system reforms, and the impact of health reform on government budgets, institutions, and programs. She has also performed market analyses of insurance markets in a number of states. Ms. Smith played a key role at the national level in various health reform initiatives. She currently leads a multi-year project to improve chronic disease management, improve health status, and facilitate integration between the public health sector and private providers across five regions of a state; leads a team evaluating prenatal care initiatives in Medicaid in multiple states, a project that has been underway for three years; guided providers through the DSRIP process; and co-led a study evaluating the monitoring of network adequacy in Medicaid managed care and Marketplace plans.
Prior to joining HMA, Ms. Smith was the founding director of the CO-OP Program Division at the Department of Health and Human Services. Her leadership resulted in the establishment of new nonprofit, consumer-governed health insurance companies in more than half of the country. She previously served as policy coordinator for Exchanges and as a senior advisor in the Office of Health Reform during the Congressional debate leading to the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Ms. Smith is the author of numerous articles and published studies on health reform, cost-effective changes in care delivery patterns to improve quality and achieve savings, and the effects of policy changes on government health programs and access to care. She served as a senior health policy advisor in Congress during the Clinton health reform debate. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Boston University Law School studying in a joint curriculum with the Harvard School of Public Health. Ms. Smith was born and reared in Richmond, Virginia. She is married and has two children.