GAO names MedPAC members, designates chair

The Government Accountability Office yesterday appointed one new member and five existing members to three-year terms on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, and designated the commission chair. The new member is Susan Thompson, R.N., senior vice president of integration and optimization for UnityPoint Health and CEO of UnityPoint Health-Fort Dodge (IA) health system. The reappointed members are Alice Coombs, M.D., critical care specialist and anesthesiologist at South Shore Hospital, Weymouth, MA; Jack Hoadley, research professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute in Washington, DC; David Nerenz, director of the Center for Health Policy and Health Services Research at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit; Rita Redberg, M.D., professor of clinical medicine, University of California at San Francisco Medical Center; and Craig Samitt, M.D., global provider practice leader for consulting firm Oliver Wyman’s Health and Life Sciences Practice. Commissioner Francis “Jay” Crosson, M.D., will chair the panel. He serves on the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and spent 35 years as a physician and physician executive at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA.