Sean Orzol

Sean Orzol is a senior director in Mathematica’s Healthcare Evaluation and Disability department and a principal researcher with more than 20 years of experience evaluating health care programs and policies affecting Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.

He has particular expertise in primary care delivery and payment reform and in rigorous impact evaluations of models developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center. His research examines how changes in the organization, delivery, and financing of health care affect access to and use of care, health care spending, quality, and patient experience.

Orzol has led impact analyses for several major CMS Innovation Center evaluations, including Comprehensive Primary Care Plus, Making Care Primary, the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model, and the Health Care Innovation Awards. His primary care research has examined efforts to transform how practices deliver care through alternative payment approaches, enhanced care management and coordination, and other changes in care delivery. Across these evaluations, he has designed comparison groups and applied rigorous quantitative methods to assess program impacts and provide timely, actionable findings to federal decision makers. His Medicaid work includes directing an evaluation of California’s Dental Transformation Initiative, part of the state’s Section 1115 demonstration, and providing methodological and quality assurance expertise for evaluations of other Section 1115 demonstrations.

Orzol’s recent work also spans programs serving older adults, people with disabilities, and medically underserved populations. He directs Mathematica’s analytic and research support to the Administration for Community Living, overseeing studies using Medicare, Medicaid, and other data to examine home- and community-based services, care coordination, health care use and spending, and the needs of older adults and people with disabilities. He also serves as technical lead for a multiyear evaluation of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Health Center Program and previously directed HRSA’s Area Health Resources Files project, a national data resource supporting research on the health care workforce, access to care, and population health.

Orzol’s research on primary care and health policy has been published in journals including JAMA, Health Services Research, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and the Annals of Family Medicine. He holds a Ph.D. in health services organization and policy and an M.P.H. in public health policy and administration from the University of Michigan.