NJ ACTS Special Populations Seminar with Miriam Laugesen

Miriam J Laugesen, PhD, Associate Professor, Columbia University; Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

“Medicaid Payment, Managed Care Contracting, and Administrative Accountability in New Mexico”

This presentation uses New Mexico as a case study to examine how Medicaid policy can improve access by addressing both provider payment and the administrative barriers that shape provider participation. Drawing on earlier work that contributed to New Mexico’s Medicaid provider rate increases and on a July 2026 report to the New Mexico Legislature, the talk focuses on provider enrollment, credentialing, contracting, and payment-system loading in Medicaid managed care. It argues that administrative simplification should be treated as a Medicaid access strategy, alongside adequate payment rates and stronger managed care accountability.

Miriam Laugesen is an expert in physician reimbursement, primary care, and private investment in health care. She is the author of Fixing Medical Prices: How Physicians Are Paid (Harvard University Press, 2016), which has influenced debates about payment reform in the United States. She has advised state policymakers on health policy, including through a 2026 project for the New Mexico Legislature focused on administrative simplification and an earlier engagement with the New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance concerning physician payment models.

From 2023 to 2024, Laugesen was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow at the National Academy of Medicine. During her fellowship, she served as a legislative fellow in the office of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, contributing to legislation and oversight related to private equity investment in health care. In 2023, she was also a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Hitachi Fellow in Japan.

Register to attend via Zoom: https://go.rutgers.edu/496ormk8