Congressional Budget Office picks a new health advisor
Erin Fraher has focused the role of medical assistants in primary care practice and primary care nurse practitioners’ wages.
The Congressional Budget Office has picked Erin Fraher to succeed Dr. Lewis Sandy as a member of its panel of health advisors.
CBO analysts give proposed legislation scores that indicate how much the proposals might increase or decrease the federal budget deficit.
If the CBO suggests that a bill will have little effect on the federal deficit, or a positive effect, that can help the bill become law.
The CBO health advisors panel shapes how CBO analysts see health care and health insurance issues.
Sandy was a primary care physician, a top UnitedHealth Group executive and a co-founder of a medical practice coaching firm.
Fraher is director of a health workforce research center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
She has been the lead author on topics such as physician residency programs, the role of medical assistants in primary care practice and primary care nurse practitioners’ wages.
Related: The physician shortage is a ‘public health crisis,’ says the AMA
She has a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College, a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a doctorate in healthy policy and management from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.