Marty Wasserman, MD, JD, FAAP
Senior Fellow
(301) 854-0033 | mpwasserman1@gmail.com
“Dr. Marty Wasserman is a pediatric clinician, an attorney, a teacher, and a public health administrator whose interests lie in efficiently improving the quality and outcomes of patient and community health while addressing the need to constantly contain costs. Since coming to PRI he has served as a Senior Consultant and Medical Director specialist for several projects including the Modernizing Medicaid: Multi-State Coordination (Neonatal Quality Improvement Study) project, the Medicare Part D Appeals resolution, and the Part C Quality Bonus Payments Reconsideration Reviews. He has worked with physicians from a variety of states to improve neonatal care and provide seminars on how to reduce central line catheter infections in the neonatal intensive care nursery for state Medicaid programs.
Dr. Wasserman played a leadership role in revising and clarifying nine federal protocols used by the External Quality Review Organizations to evaluate specific projects and programs provided for the State Medicaid Agencies by the Medicaid managed care organizations. He also reviewed, interviewed experts, and provided analysis and recommendations for the Congressionally mandated report of the DHHS Secretary regarding the CHIPRA Legislation.
While Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Dr. Wasserman created the HealthChoice Program in response to an 1115 Waiver to initiate Maryland’s Medicaid Managed Care Program and subsequently incorporated the Maryland state Child Health Insurance Program into it as well. His lifelong professional interest has centered on the delivery of and improvement of clinical services to children to improve their health. He has also developed pilot programs for geriatric dental care, psychiatric social work treatment for child abuse victims, and a special program for assuring obstetrical care for indigent women while serving as chief county health official. Dr. Wasserman created a number of quality initiatives while serving as Maryland Health Secretary requiring data collection, analysis, and reporting to achieve a defined set of goals and objectives. For this, he and his team received the Governor’s Gold Award for Quality Initiatives.
Dr. Wasserman has frequently been asked to speak on a variety of health and mental health topics before professional organizations, and has testified before both state legislatures as well as the U.S. Congress. In addition he is frequently requested to provide substantive comments to the public through print and broadcast media. He is able to describe complex and confusing health and scientific information in a clear, concise, and calming fashion to the public and has been able to sensitively comfort families and communities during public health crises including outbreaks of meningitis, the need for whooping cough and measles vaccinations, AIDS and HIV concerns, and the problems associated with pfeisteria, a single celled organism that caused physical and mental health problems in waterman on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Before joining PRI, Dr. Wasserman worked extensively on quality measures projects for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) including the Maintenance and Re-Evaluation of Hospital Inpatient Quality Measures project and the Development, Implementation, and Maintenance of Quality Measures for Hospital Outpatient Departments and Ambulatory Surgical Centers project.