Sabrina Corlette, J.D., is a Research Professor at the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. There she directs research on health insurance reform issues as they affect consumers and patients. Her areas of focus include state and federal regulation of private health insurance plans and markets and implementation of new insurance market rules under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). She trains individuals and organizations on federal and state health insurance laws and programs and provides technical support through the development of resource guides, white papers, issue briefs, and fact sheets.
Prior to joining the institute faculty, Ms. Corlette was Director of Health Policy Programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she provided policy expertise and strategic direction for the organization’s advocacy on health care reform, with a particular focus on insurance market reform, benefit design, and the quality and affordability of health care.
From 1997 to 2001, Ms. Corlette worked as a professional staff member of the U.S. Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, where she served as health legislative assistant to Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA). After leaving the Hill, Ms. Corlette served as an attorney at the law firm Hogan Lovells (formerly Hogan & Hartson LLP), where she advised clients on health care law and policy relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Medicare and Medicaid, and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
Ms. Corlette is a member of the DC Bar and received her J.D. with
high honors from the University of Texas at Austin and an A.B. from Harvard University.
Frank Funderburk joined the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Division of Research in 2007. He is currently responsible for the strategic planning, implementation, and analysis of a variety of health care research efforts that support and enhance CMS communications activities. He is especially interested in developing data-driven communication strategies that can overcome persistent informational, attitudinal, and motivational barriers to better health care, including those related to health and digital literacy. His research has included evaluation of the effectiveness of a variety of outreach and education campaigns as well as a recent experimental study of direct marketing strategies for improving outreach to vulnerable beneficiaries eligible for but not enrolled in the Low Income Subsidy. He has investigated ways in which health care decision-making style can influence beneficiary perception of Medicare programs as well as receptivity to specific outreach and communication activities. His work has helped to inform recent initiatives encouraging adoption of electronic health records and quality initiatives such as the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) public reporting of consumer’s hospital experiences.
Prior to joining CMS, Mr. Funderburk was an analytic scientist at the Delmarva Foundation for Medical Care where he directed external quality review for Medicaid programs in nine states and the District of Columbia. He also worked with states to develop innovative outreach programs to improve the quality of care and the quality of life of people receiving Medicaid.
Mr. Funderburk has over 20 years of health care, health communications, and health policy research experience ranging from basic scientific studies of brain-behavior relationships involved in decision making to large multicenter clinical trials of new pharmaceutical products as well as national surveys of consumer behavior.
Marilyn D. Maultsby is director of the Division of State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) Relations, in the Office of External Affairs and Beneficiary Services, at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), in Baltimore, Maryland. She has held this position since 2006. The Division of SHIP Relations provides management and oversight of CMS-funded grants to SHIPs in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. The division also provides information, training, and technical support to these programs.
As director of the Division of SHIP Relations, Ms. Maultsby has played a key role in the development and implementation of a performance mea-
surement system for the SHIP network, the provision of SHIPs’ access to a designated 1-800-MEDICARE number, the implementation of enhancements to the SHIP National Performance Reporting System, and in training new SHIP directors.
Prior to coming to CMS, Ms. Maultsby was executive director of the Maryland Health Care Foundation, a nonprofit, charitable organization established in 1997 by the Maryland State General Assembly to support efforts to improve access to health care services to uninsured and underinsured persons in the state. The foundation served as an incubator for innovative programs to improve access to health care services for the uninsured and underinsured. Program results provided information for regulatory and legislative decision making.
In addition to her work at the foundation, Ms. Maultsby has over 30 years of experience in the health care industry, including as Vice President of Strategic Planning and Administration for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland, Director of Sales and Marketing for Maryland Fidelity Insurance Company, and Director of Planning for the Maryland State Health Planning and Development Agency.
Ms. Maultsby’s community involvement has included serving as president of the Maryland State Board of Education, treasurer of the Northwest Hospital Center Board of Trustees, and as a member of the President’s Advisory Council of Villa Julie College (now Stevenson University). She has also chaired the Boards of Directors of Associated Black Charities, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland, and the House of Ruth. In recognition of her mentoring, professional, and community achievements, Ms. Maultsby was inducted into the Circle of Excellence of the Daily Record’s Maryland’s Top 100 Women Award.
Yolanda Partida, M.S.W., D.P.A., is director of the National Program Office for Hablamos Juntos: Improving Patient-Provider Communication for Latinos, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to improve access to quality health care for Latinos with limited English proficiency. Hablamos Juntos (We Speak Together) is working with 10 demonstration sites around the country to develop affordable ways health providers can offer language services. Grantees are implementing seven program requirements in three benchmark areas: (1) increasing the availability and quality of interpreter services; (2) developing useful health-related materials in Spanish; and (3) supporting the development of symbols-based signage to help patients find their way around health care facilities.
Dr. Partida has extensive experience in public teaching and private hospital administration, as well as public health administration and public policy. She has consulted on health policy and management, implemented
cross-border public health strategies in the most populated U.S.-Mexico border region, and helped launch Healthy San Diego, a multihealth plan managed care program for Medicaid patients. Dr. Partida received her D.P.A. from the University of Southern California, School of Policy, Planning, and Development.
Susan Pisano, M.A., is the vice president of communications for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). She acts as a spokesperson for AHIP and is responsible for outreach to member companies, the news media, and other major audiences. She is the primary staff member for AHIP’s Health Literacy Task Force.
Ms. Pisano has worked at AHIP since 1987. Before coming to AHIP, she was the public relations director at Pacific Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, a local institution affiliated with a health maintenance organization (HMO) since 1985. She began her career at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, and received her bachelor of arts degree at Chestnut Hill College in 1971 and her master of arts degree in 1975 from Villanova University.
Lynn Quincy is a senior policy analyst with the Consumers Union. She works on a wide variety of health policy issues, with a particular focus on consumer protections, health insurance literacy, and health insurance reform at the federal and state levels. Ms. Quincy serves as a consumer representative with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). Her recent work includes three studies examining consumer reactions to the new health insurance disclosure forms being developed by the NAIC. Prior to joining Consumers Union, Ms. Quincy was a senior researcher with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., where she performed policy analysis, provided technical assistance, and modeled outcomes in support of state coverage expansion strategies. She also held senior positions with the Institute for Health Policy Solutions and Watson Wyatt Worldwide (now Towers Watson). She holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Maryland.
Rima Rudd, Sc.D., is the Senior Lecturer on Society, Human Development, and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her work centers on health communication and on the design and evaluation of public health community-based programs. She has been teaching courses on innovative strategies in health education, program planning and evaluation, psychosocial and behavioral theory, and health literacy since 1988.
Dr. Rudd is focusing her research inquiries on literacy-related disparities and literacy-related barriers to health programs, services, and care,
working closely with the adult education, public health, oral health, and medical sectors. She wrote several reports that have helped shape the agenda in health literacy research and practice. They include the health literacy chapter of the Department of Health and Human Services report Communicating Health: Priorities and Strategies for Progress (2003), the Educational Testing Services report Literacy and Health in America (2004), and two in-depth literature reviews (Review of Adult Learning and Literacy, volume 1 in 2000 and volume 7 in 2007). She served on the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Health Literacy, the National Research Council Committee on Measuring Adult Literacy, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research Workgroup on Oral Health Literacy, on the Joint Commission Advisory Committee on Health Literacy and Patient Safety, and contributed to the ensuing reports and white papers.
Dr. Rudd currently serves on the National Health Literacy Advisory Board for the American Dental Association and is the Senior Health Literacy Advisor for the Missouri Foundation. She is a visiting professor in the Faculty of Health and Social Care, London Southbank University, and was appointed the visiting Health Literacy Scholar at the Horowitz Center on Health Literacy at the University of Maryland, School of Public Health. She is a coprincipal investigator on several ongoing health literacy research projects. Dr. Rudd is considered a leader in this growing field of research and practice.
Alice M. Weiss, J.D., is the codirector of Maximizing Enrollment, a $15 million Robert Wood Johnson Foundation initiative directed by the National Academy of State Health Policy (NASHP) that helps states increase enrollment of children eligible for public health coverage and prepare systems for enrollment of newly eligible populations. Weiss also contributes to NASHP’s health reform implementation work, mostly in projects supporting peer-learning by states in efforts to improve to eligibility and enrollment systems. Weiss previously served as Health Counsel for U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), working on Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and private health insurance legislation. In that capacity, she drafted legislation to reform Medicaid, provided an emergency health coverage response to Hurricane Katrina, improved the Native American health coverage system, and reauthorized the CHIP program. Weiss has also held key policy positions with the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Partnership for Women & Families focused on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), private insurance and Medicaid legislation, rulemaking, and litigation policy. In those positions, Weiss played a central supporting role in the creation of Patients Bill of Rights legislation and ERISA internal
claims procedure rules, testified before Congress, led coalition legislative campaigns, and represented consumer interests before the National Association of Insurance Commissioners as a funded consumer representative. Weiss received her bachelor of arts from Haverford College and her Juris Doctorate from Northeastern University Law School.