Past Speakers

Elizabeth Fowler serves as Senior Counsel to the Chair and Chief Health Counsel to the Senate Finance Committee, Democratic Staff. She has responsibility for overseeing health policy issues within the Committee’s jurisdiction, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, health tax issues and initiatives to provide health coverage for the uninsured. Over the past year, she has been the lead staffer on health care reform. During a two year hiatus from the Finance Committee between 2005 and 2008, Liz was Vice President of Public Policy for WellPoint, Inc. Liz has nearly 20 years of experience in health policy and health services research. She was an attorney with the Washington law firm Hogan & Hartson, and she spent five years as a health services researcher with HealthSystem Minnesota. Liz received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, where her research focused on risk adjustment, and a law degree from the University of Minnesota. She is a member of the bar in the District of Columbia and Maryland.

Geoffrey Gerhardt has worked on Capitol Hill for more than 15 years in a variety of legislative positions. He currently serves on the professional staff of the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. He oversees Part B of the Medicare program, with a focus on the physician payment system. He is also involved in legislation dealing with health information technology, comparative effectiveness research, and disease management. Prior to joining the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Gerhardt worked at the Congressional Budget Office where he analyzed Medicare and federal pension programs. He holds a Masters of Public Policy from Georgetown University.

Cristina Boccuti is a Principal Policy Analyst at the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC)—an independent Congressional agency that advises the U.S. Congress on issues affecting the Medicare program. Since joining MedPAC in 2003, Cristina has worked on issues related to physician payment, medical education, medical home, hospice, and prescription drugs. Prior to joining MedPAC, Cristina held research and analyst positions at The Urban Institute, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS-ASPE). Before her career in health policy, Cristina was a speech-language pathologist treating Medicare and Medicaid patients at Mount Sinai—a teaching hospital in Chicago, Illinois.

Jerry Kruse is Professor and Chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. In 2007, Dr. Kruse was appointed to serve on the Federal Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME).

He is a member of the Illinois State Board of Health; serving on the BOH Policy Committee, and writer for the 2008 Organizing Philosophy for the BOH, Organization of Healthcare Delivery Public Health, Patient-Centered Medical Homes & Community Care Coordination.

Additionally, Dr. Kruse serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Departments of Family Medicine (ADFM) and the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM).

Bob Kocher is a member of the National Economic Council focusing on healthcare and economic policy.

Bob joins the Obama Administration after serving as a Partner at McKinsey & Company where he led McKinsey Global Institute’s healthcare economic research team, and served private and public sector healthcare clients. He has worked extensively with hospitals, health systems, and policy makers in 18 countries including the US, Canada, UK, Middle East, India, and Asia. In addition, he has led major research efforts to understand the economic incentives of the US health system, to look at why healthcare is so expensive, and to develop a framework for guiding health system reform around the world.

Bob is an active writer and public speaker on a range of healthcare topics including healthcare reform, healthcare economics, improving clinical outcomes, and international healthcare strategies for US hospitals. He and his work have been widely published or quoted in the McKinsey Quarterly, New England Journal of Medicine, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times and on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He is the lead author of “Accounting for the High Cost of US Healthcare” and a 2009 update.

Bob received undergraduate degree from the University of Washington and medical degree from George Washington University. He completed a research fellowship with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health. He went on to complete his internal residency training at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Harvard Medical School.

Andrew Bazemore, MD, MPH, is Assistant Director of the Robert Graham Center. Prior to his current position, Dr. Bazemore was an Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Family Medicine, where he also completed his residency training and faculty development fellowship. As a member of the Research Division and Director of the International Health Program, Dr. Bazemore developed interests in access to care for underserved populations both domestically and internationally, and on the application of geographic information systems to the study of the United States safety net. A member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, he also practices and teaches residents in Fairfax, Va., and serves on the faculties of the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University and Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Bazemore earned a B.A. degree from Davidson College, an M.D. degree from the University of North Carolina, and an M.P.H. degree from Harvard University.

Keith Flanagan is Health Counsel to Ranking Member Enzi on the Senate health committee. He earned a BA from Colgate and a JD from the University of Southern California, and he formerly practiced corporate law in Sonnenschein, Nath and Rosenthal’s Chicago office.

Dr. Derksen is a Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine and Senior Fellow for the Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico (UNM). He sees patients and teaches medical students and resident trainees at UNM and at the First Choice South Valley Health Commons in Albuquerque, NM.

Dr. Derksen was President of the NM Medical Society in 2009 and worked on medical homes legislation to create pilots for the state’s Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs culminating in the enactment of HB 710. He was appointed to a four-year term on the American Academy of Family Physicians Commission on Governmental Advocacy in 2010.

Cynthia E. Berry is a respected advocate before Congress and the Administration on a range of issues, including health care; appropriations; education reform; aviation; telecommunications; and international matters. She routinely advises clients on lobbying disclosure requirements, election law issues, and government ethics.

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Alan K. Parver focuses his practice on health care law with particular emphasis on representing providers, suppliers and manufacturers on legislative and regulatory issues pertaining to third-party reimbursement, coverage and coding. A significant portion of his practice is concentrated on Medicare coverage and reimbursement for medical equipment and technology.

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Kelly J. Devers, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow in the Health Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Her main areas of expertise are provider payment and competition, the organization and delivery of care, and their impacts on access, cost, and quality.

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Hoangmai Pham, MD, MPH is co-director for research at the Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington, DC. Her work focuses on the organization of care delivery and care integration, quality measurement and improvement, providers’ responses to financial incentives, health disparities, and how each of the above intersects with payment policy. She has a particular interest in Medicare, and contributes to the design of Medicare programs and policies including the Medical Home Demonstration and Physician Value Based Purchasing Program. Dr. Pham received her AB from Harvard, MD from Temple University, and MPH from Johns Hopkins, where she was also a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. She practices general internal medicine at a safety clinic in Washington.

Dr. Hayashi is the Chief Medical Officer for the Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

As Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Hayashi oversees the bureau’s clinical quality strategy for the nation’s community health centers, migrant health centers, health care for the homeless centers, and public housing primary care centers. Located in communities nationwide, these sites provide comprehensive, culturally competent, quality primary health care to more than 17 million people – about one out of every 18 people nationally. Health centers are health homes for more than one in three people living in poverty.

Prior to coming to HRSA, Dr. Hayashi served as Assistant Research Professor of Public Health and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University Medical Center. Dr. Hayashi worked with community health centers and primary care associations conducting research focused on quality improvement with special emphasis on the use of health information technologies and geographic information systems. At the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s national program office at GWU, he led the ambulatory care quality improvement efforts for the Foundation’s program, Aligning Forces for Quality. As faculty for the School of Public Health and Health Services, he taught Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC) as a way to integrate primary care and public health and was director of their MPH program in COPC.
Prior to GWU, Dr. Hayashi was director of the Division of Community Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. There he directed the Community Health Center Director Development Fellowship and taught COPC to medical students, residents and fellows.

Dr. Hayashi is a board-certified family physician and has been caring for patients at a federally qualified health center in the District of Columbia since 2001.
Dr. Hayashi graduated with honors from Vassar College with a degree in Studio Art (sculpture concentration). He received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1997 and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. In 2000, he completed the Family and Community Medicine Residency Program at the University of California San Francisco. He received his MPH degree from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2001 as a fellow for the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy.

Daniel G. Mareck, M.D., entered Federal service in 2005 as the Chief Medical Officer for the National Health Service Corps in the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). He is a family medicine physician and practiced in full and part-time capacities for nineteen years. His professional experiences include twelve years as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He is currently the Director of the Division of Medicine and Dentistry in HRSA’s Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr) and Chief Medical Officer for BHPr. He also serves as the DHHS representative to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

Robert L. Phillips, Jr., MD, MSPH, graduated from the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, Florida, with honors for special distinction. He did residency training in family medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he remained for a research fellowship, completing a Masters of Science in Public Health. He has served on the American Medical Association’s Council on Medical Education and as the President of the National Residency Matching Program, and currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Council on Graduate Medical Education. His research interests include physician-health system interactions and their effects on quality of care, geographic information systems, and collaborative care processes.

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