Prevention, Lab Tests, and Health Reform:  What’s the Score?
Special Focus:  New Lewin Group Report, “The Value of Laboratory Screening and Diagnostic Tests for Prevention and Health Care Improvement”
September 29, 2009

Speaker bios

Clifford Goodman

Clifford Goodman is a Vice President at The Lewin Group, a health care policy and human services consulting firm based in Falls Church, Virginia.  He has more than 25 years of experience in such areas as health technology assessment, evidence-based health care, comparative effectiveness research, knowledge transfer, health economics, and studies pertaining to health care innovation, regulation, and payment.  He directs studies and projects for an international range of government agencies; pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies; health care provider institutions; and professional, industry, and patient advocacy groups.  Dr. Goodman is interim director of the new Lewin Group Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research.  For HHS, Dr. Goodman is currently directing a contract for Lewin to provide analytical support to the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.  He is chair (through May 2011) of the Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC) for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  He has testified to Congress on issues pertaining to Medicare coverage of health care technology.  Dr. Goodman is a nationally recognized health policy issues moderator and facilitator of expert panels and advisory groups.  He is a founding board member of Health Technology Assessment International and is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.  He did his undergraduate work at Cornell University, received a master's degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and earned his doctorate from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 

John K. Iglehart

For 26 years, John Iglehart held two editorial leadership positions in the world of health policy.  Iglehart was editor of Health Affairs, a bimonthly policy journal that he founded in 1981 under the aegis of Project HOPE, for 26 years, stepping down in September 2007 to return to a life of health policy writing.  Over this same period, Iglehart also served as a national correspondent of The New England Journal of Medicine, for which he has written more than 100 essays called Health Policy Reports.  He continues to serve in that role with TNEJM.  Health Affairs, a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal, has made its mark by translating health services research and policy analysis into content that is more accessible to Members of Congress and other key participants in federal and state health policymaking.  Health Affairs publishes its journal six times a year but it also posts original, peer-reviewed papers on its Web site several times a week.  Health Affairs is the largest circulating health policy journal in the United States and has subscribers in 50 foreign countries.  Before 1981, Iglehart served for two years as a vice president of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and director of its Washington, D.C. office.  During the decade 1969 to 1979, Iglehart held a variety of editorial positions, including the editorship, of National Journal, a privately published weekly on federal policymaking.  Iglehart was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences in 1977 and served on its Governing Council for six years (1985-1991).  He also is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and serves on the Advisory Board of the National Institute For Health Care Management.  Previously, Iglehart served on the boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates and AcademyHealth.  He holds a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin and has been a journalist-in-residence at Harvard University.  

Alan Mertz

During his six year tenure as President, Alan Mertz has led the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) to three major advocacy successes for the laboratory industry with the 2008 enactment of legislation repealing the Medicare competitive bidding demonstration project, the 2009 4.5% CPI update for laboratories (the largest increase in 20 years), and the 2003 defeat of legislation that would have cut Medicare reimbursement by 20% and imposed copays.  In 2007, ACLA launched “Results for Life,” a successful educational campaign to promote the value of laboratory services.  Other advocacy successes during his tenure include stopping Senate legislation on FDA regulation of Laboratory Developed Tests in 2007, the suspension of Phase VIII Medically Unlikely Edits (MUEs) in 2009, repealing single-winner competitive bidding legislation in Florida, and many other initiatives.  Since 2003, ACLA has tripled its membership, increased its expert staff, and expanded its visibility and advocacy agenda.  Prior to taking the reigns at ACLA, Mertz was Executive Vice President and Acting President of the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), and from 1980 to 1998 served in three senior staff positions in Congress.   He was selected as a John C. Stennis Congressional Fellow in 1996, and for more than ten years has taught and lectured at both the George Washington University and American University in Washington, DC.   He holds a Masters Degree in American Government and Bachelors degree in Government.

Michael O’Grady

Michael J. O’Grady is a Senior Fellow in the Health Policy and Evaluation Department at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and Director of O’Grady Health Policy, LLC, a private health consulting firm.  He is a veteran health policy expert with 24 years working in Congress and HHS.  From 2003 to 2005, Dr. O’Grady was the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHS, where he directed both policy development and policy research across the full array of issues confronting the Department, increased the quality and rigor of the Department’s research and analysis significantly, and provided rapid and critical analyses of legislative and regulatory proposals.  Prior to his post with HHS, Dr. O’Grady served as the Senior Health Economist on the majority staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.  At the Committee, his work focused primarily on Medicare reform, the uninsured, and other national health issues.   Previously, he was a Senior Research Director at Project Hope’s Center for Health Affairs, where his work focused on Medicare reform issues.  For several years, Dr. O’Grady was a Senior Health Advisor to the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.   Before joining the staff of the Senate Finance Committee, Dr. O’Grady was a senior analyst for the Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare (Breaux/Thomas), the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), and the Physician Payment Review Commission (PPRC).  He also spent several years with the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress and the Office for Civil Rights in both the Department of Health Education and Welfare and the Department of Education.  At CRS, he developed econometric and actuarial models of social legislation including reform of the federal employee pension system.   Dr. O’Grady holds a B.A. in Political Science from Alfred University, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Rochester.

Susan R. Snyder

Susan R. Snyder is a health economist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and is currently the Evidence-Based Performance Evaluation Team Leader in the Division of Laboratory Systems in the National Center for Preparedness, Detection and Control of Infectious Diseases.  Her work primarily involves managing and contributing to multiple projects developing and applying evaluation methods related to research and evidence including systematic reviews, performance measures, impact analyses and economic evaluations focused on improving health care quality and public health.  She leads multiple laboratory medicine quality initiatives dedicated to improving health outcomes including CDC’s Laboratory Medicine Best Practices, now completing its third year of developing and implementing new systematic review methods for evaluating the effectiveness of quality improvement practices to make evidence-based recommendations using published and unpublished studies obtained via a network of individuals in health care organizations.   Her previous CDC experience included contributing to the Guide to Community Preventive Services, including economic evaluations and methods, and evidence reviews and analyses in diabetes, violence prevention, and vaccination.  Prior to joining CDC, her previous work  experience included health policy and health services research focusing on financing and reimbursement for the Health Policy Center at Georgia State University, and private sector employment in medical economics, managed care, employee benefits consulting, and corporate finance for large national  U.S. firms.  Her degrees include a PhD in Economics from Georgia State University with fields in health care and labor economics, an MBA in finance from the University of California Berkeley, and a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Neera Tanden

Neera Tanden is currently the Senior Advisor for Health Reform at HHS, where she is working on the President’s health care reform plan and helping formulate the department’s response to reform efforts. Prior to that she was the Director of Domestic Policy for the Obama Biden Presidential Campaign, where she ran point on the campaign’s major initiative on health care, as well as other domestic issues. Before that, Tanden served as Policy Director for the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign where she directed all policy work, ranging from domestic to economic to foreign affairs. She previously served as Senator Clinton's Legislative Director, where she oversaw health care policy, including the Senator’s health care quality legislation and comparative effectiveness proposals. She was formerly Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy at the Center for American Progress, as well as Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, where she worked on the Center’s proposals for universal health care and health care quality. Tanden received her Bachelor of Science degree at UCLA and received her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Stephen J. Ubl

Stephen Ubl is president and CEO of AdvaMed, the world's largest medical technology association. AdvaMed has more than 1, 600 member companies, subsidiaries and divisions producing medical devices, diagnostic products and medical information systems. The Association’s membership has experienced an impressive 11 percent growth rate during the past five years, with 121 companies joining in 2008 alone.  Ubl is recognized as a top health care advocate and policy expert with considerable experience across multiple health policy sectors. His accomplishments include landmark reforms related to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration product review process and Medicare's coverage and reimbursement of medical technologies. Annually, Ubl is recognized as a top association lobbyist by leading Washington political publications.  He first joined AdvaMed in 1998 as executive vice president of federal government relations. He left the organization in 2004 to open his own health care consulting firm, which served clients including Fortune 500 health care companies and leading investment banks. In July 2005, Ubl was chosen to lead AdvaMed as its president and CEO.  Prior to AdvaMed, Ubl was vice president of legislation for the Federation of American Hospitals. Ubl began his Washington career on Capitol Hill, where he worked for U.S. Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-IA).   Ubl holds a degree in Political Science from St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN.