Lauren is a senior research scientist whose work centers on measuring spending, utilization, and quality in Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Model evaluations. Lauren has expertise in data management and analysis of primary and secondary data sources, including national claims, administrative, and assessment data. 

At NORC, Lauren leads the implementation of measure specifications for over thirty utilization, spending, and quality of care measures to be used on the Global and Professional Direct Contracting (GPDC)/ACO Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO REACH) Model evaluation. She also leads mixed methods analyses focusing on ACOs’ engagement strategies with skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) for the Next Generation ACO Model evaluation. Additionally, Lauren supports the Physician-focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC) and provides insight across projects on data management and analysis of the Minimum Data Set (MDS) 3.0, Payroll Based Journal (PBJ) staffing data, and post-acute and long-term care datasets in the Provider Data Catalog.

Prior to joining NORC, Lauren led quantitative and reporting tasks on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)-funded projects to develop, test, and validate quality measures for the Skilled Nursing Facility Quality Reporting Program and Nursing Home Quality Initiative. She co-led clinical review, reclassification, and recalibration of CMS-Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) risk adjustment models used in Medicare Part C, including End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) and frailty models. Lauren also led iterative updates to the Health and Human Services (HHS)-Developed Risk Adjustment Model Algorithm Software, which supports issuers in using their enrollment data to simulate their enrollee populations’ benefit year risk scores within the HHS-HCC risk adjustment models. Her research interests include quality measurement and public reporting, especially as they relate to post-acute and long-term care settings, as well as exploring different sources of quality information, such as social media data.