Yan Tang

Dr. Yan Tang has served as lead or co-lead of teams on large projects funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). For example, she currently serves as Associate Project Director for CMS’ Primary Care First (PCF) Model implementation contract, a nationwide five-year payment model that rewards value and quality by offering an innovative payment structure to support the delivery of advanced primary care. She previously was Associate Project Director for CMS’ Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) Initiative implementation contract, which was also a nationwide large multi-payer initiative to improve primary care. Dr. Tang also served as lead research analyst on CMS’ Medicare Shared Savings Program Accountable Care Organization (ACO) implementation contract, which is one of Medicare’s primary alternative payment models, and one of the most important components in achieving the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’s) cost savings and quality improvement goals for Medicare beneficiaries. In addition, she was the Director of a project awarded through RTI’s prestigious Professional Development Award that examines opioid prescription utilization and expenditures in Medicare.

Dr. Tang has research experience on federal government funded and state-funded projects examining the access and quality of care in Medicare and Medicaid populations, including assessing evidence-based prescribing for schizophrenia in a large Medicaid program, examining the impact of Medicare Part D features on choice of generic drugs for multiple chronic conditions, and examining variation in antipsychotic prescribing for mental health conditions.

Dr. Tang has broad quantitative and analytical skills, including calculating and developing quality measures using large claims databases, creating quality measure benchmarks, and developing novel methods for quality evaluation. She is also an expert in beneficiary attribution, beneficiary voluntary alignment, quasi-experimental designs, statistical and econometric modeling and policy simulations. Dr. Tang has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Medical Care, Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics, JAMA Psychiatry, and Psychiatric Services.