Robert A. Berenson

 

Board Member

Institute Fellow, Urban Institute

Robert Berenson, MD, FACP, is an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington DC. He is an expert in health care policy, particularly Medicare, with experience practicing medicine, serving in senior positions in two Administrations, and helping organize and manage a successful preferred provider organization. His primary research and policy interests currently are in the areas of payment and delivery system reform, market concentration, and performance measurement.

Dr. Berenson in October, 2018 completed a 3-year term on the Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC), established by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.  In 2012, he completed service on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, including two years as Vice-Chair. From 1998-2000, he was in charge of Medicare payment policy and private health plan contracting in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Previously, he served on the Carter White House Domestic Policy Staff.  Dr. Berenson is a board-certified internist who practiced for twenty years, the last twelve in a Washington, D.C. group practice, and while practicing helped organize and manage a successful PPO serving the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

He was co-author, with Walter Zelman, of The Managed Care Blues & How to Cure Them, and, with Rick Mayes, Medicare Prospective Payment and the Shaping of U.S. Health Care. He publishes frequently in journals that include the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Health Affairs. Dr. Berenson received his B.S. from Brandeis University and his M.D. degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and is on the adjunct faculty of the George Washington University School of Public Health.