Indian-American health policy expert Dr Meena Seshamani has been appointed as the US Centre for Medicare Director. The 43-year-old, who has served on the leadership of the Biden-Harris transition Health and Human Services (HHS) agency review team, will be leading the Centre’s effort in serving people who are 65 or above, people with disabilities and people with End-Stage Renal Disease that rely on Medicare coverage.
Dr Seshamani stepped in as Deputy Administrator and Director of the Centre for Medicare on July 6, 2021. She is skilled as a healthcare executive, health economist, physician and health policy expert to CMS,” said CMS (Centres for Medicare & Medicaid Services) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure.
“Dr Meena Seshamani brings her diverse background as a health care executive, health economist, physician and health policy expert to CMS,” said CMS (Centres for Medicare & Medicaid Services) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure.
“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 Centre for Medicare,” she said.
As per a media release, Seshamani recently served as Vice President of Clinical Care Transformation at MedStar Health. Before that, Seshamani had served as the director of the Office of Health Reform at the US Department of Health and Human Services.
As part of her diverse fields of experience, Seshamani has also cared for patients as an Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.
Seshamani pursued her BA with Honours in Business Economics from Brown University and subsequently received her MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and her PhD in Health Economics from the University of Oxford. At the University of Oxford, she was a Marshall Scholar.
Further, she pursued and finished her Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery residency training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She has previously practised as a head and neck surgeon at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco.
