Senior Research Director
Julia A. Doherty, M.H.S.A., is a Senior Research Director at L&M Policy Research. Ms. Doherty has over 30 years of experience in health care management, policy, and research. She held executive posts in a health maintenance organization, a major academic hospital, a community health center, and a management consulting firm prior to joining L&M. Ms. Doherty has since led multiple qualitative and quantitative research efforts conducting program assessments, performing data and program analysis and model evaluation. She has facilitated multiple national and state stakeholder meetings and managed national expert panels on health care delivery and payment reform. She has conducted over 1,000 key informant interviews and case studies nationwide with key health care executives and staff across multiple settings with providers, payers, state agencies, suppliers, manufacturers, researchers, experts, patient advocates, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders.
Ms. Doherty’s work at L&M focuses on health delivery systems improvements, Medicare, and Medicaid value-based care models. As part of this work, she has contributed to evaluations of accountable care organizations, and transformation models and programs across the care continuum, many of which were for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). She currently contributes to projects for Innovation Center examining various aspects of quality, reimbursement, access, efficiency, and health systems transformation. Ms. Doherty co-leads the primary data collection and analysis for the CMS ACO REACH Model evaluation along with NORC. She leads the primary data collection and analysis for the evaluation of CMS’s Home Health Value-Based Purchasing Model along with Arbor Research. Ms. Doherty also leads qualitative research projects for the MedPAC, most recently examining the factors that affect discharge planning decisions to send Medicare patients to either inpatient rehabilitation facilities or skilled nursing facilities. In addition, Ms. Doherty supports the work of L&M’s team building a business case to advance health equity for the CMS Office of Minority Health.
Prior to joining L&M, she worked as a consultant with the state of Vermont’s Department of Public Health, and its Health Care Reform Commission on several projects involving medical homes and accountable care organizations. She worked with MedPAC, The Indian Health Service, and other health care providers and associations in United States and Germany.
Ms. Doherty holds a Master of Health Services Administration from George Washington University and has published in multiple peer-reviewed national and international journals.