Timothy O’Brien

Timothy O’Brien is an economist in RTI’s Health Coverage for Low-Income and Uninsured Populations program. With an academic background in health economics, he provides analysis for several projects for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). His work focuses on supporting innovative payment and service delivery models.

Currently, Mr. O’Brien leads the assignment team for the Medicare Shared Savings program, which creates incentives for Accountable Care Organizations to reduce the growth of costs while meeting quality standards. Mr. O’Brien also consults for the alignment team supporting the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation’s (CMMI) Direct Contracting model. He has also worked on RTI’s evaluation of the Maryland All-Payer Model—a payment structure being tested for hospitals in Maryland—and on RTI’s evaluation of the State Innovations Model (SIM) Initiative.

Mr. O’Brien joined RTI in 2013. Previously, he was a data analyst at AccessCare, a care management agency for the North Carolina Medicaid program. He has taught economics courses at Northeastern University, Lasell College, and Boston University.