Indian American Doctor Appointed Director of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
- Dr. Meena Seshamani will lead the center’s efforts in serving the people 65 or older, people with disabilities, who rely on Medicare coverage.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has appointed Dr. Meena Seshamani as its deputy administrator and director. She will lead the center’s efforts in serving the people 65 or older, people with disabilities, who rely on Medicare coverage.
“Honored to lead Medicare during this pivotal time,” Seshamani tweeted. “I will bring my experience as a doctor, a health system leader, and health policy expert to promote health equity, quality person-centered care, and affordability and sustainability.”
“Dr. Meena Seshamani brings her diverse background as a healthcare executive, health economist, physician, and health policy expert to CMS,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure in a press release. “Providing quality health care to the people who rely on Medicare and advancing health equity as we do it is a priority for CMS. I am delighted to say Dr. Seshamani will bring her unique perspective on how health policy impacts the real lives of patients to her leadership role as Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare.”
Previously, the CMS was headed by another Indian American — Seema Verma — a Trump appointee, who resigned from her post in January.
Seshamani most recently served as vice president of Clinical Care Transformation at MedStar Health, where she conceptualized, designed, and implemented population health and value-based care initiatives and served on the senior leadership of the 10 hospital-300+ outpatient care site health system. She also cared for patients as an Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.
She also served on the leadership of the Biden-Harris Transition HHS Agency Review Team.
Before MedStar Health, she was director of the Office of Health Reform at the US Department of Health and Human Services, where she drove strategy and led the implementation of the Affordable Care Act across the Department, including coverage policy, delivery system reform, and public health policy.
Seshamani received her B.A. with Honors in Business Economics from Brown University, her M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and her Ph.D. in Health Economics from the University of Oxford, where she was a Marshall Scholar. She completed her residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and practiced as a head-and-neck surgeon at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco.