Robert S. Saunders, Ph.D., is Research Director, Payment and Delivery Reform at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University in Washington, DC. In this role, he directs a portfolio of payment and delivery reform initiatives, which focus on ACOs, alternative payment models for specialty care, new payment and delivery approaches for serious illness care, and translating evidence to policy-relevant options. Prior to joining Duke-Margolis, Dr. Saunders was a Senior Director and then Senior Advisor to the President of the National Quality Forum, where he managed a large federally-funded project that provided recommendations on more than 200 quality measures for 20 different federal programs in a period of two months. As Senior Advisor, he directed special projects on topics including data, payment reform, systems engineering, and future of healthcare quality measurement. There, he authored targeted communications to translate the organization’s technical work for a broad audience. He was previously Senior Program Officer at the Institute of Medicine and managed health care legislative affairs for Representative Rush D. Holt.

Authored by Robert S. Saunders, Ph.D.

Publication

Addressing Social Needs through Medicaid: Lessons from Planning and Early Implementation of North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities Pilots

As more states focus on addressing enrollee's social needs, North Carolina's Pilots project provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the implementation of 29 evidence-based services. This paper provides timely and practical findings and recommendations from the planning, capacity building, and early implementation of the program.
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Publication

North Carolina’s COVID-19 Support Services Program: Lessons for Health Policy Programs to Address Social Needs

As states consider expanding or creating health programs that address social needs, this analysis of North Carolina’s COVID-19 Support Services offers considerations such as building the capacity of community-based human service organizations, creating feedback channels for all providers, and more.
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