Nicole Coomer serves as the director of Analytics for Payment System Implementation and Evaluation at RTI International. She leads and conducts analyses of government and private sector-funded health policy, health service programs, evaluations, and demonstrations. Dr. Coomer researches healthcare markets, including provider and health plan reimbursement, payment systems, analysis of health care costs and utilization, and financial incentives. Her area of expertise focuses on patient assessment data, medical claims and enrollment data, and Medicare cost report data.
Currently, Dr. Coomer supports the CMMI Direct Contracting model and examines unified payments in post-acute care and risk adjustment models to predict post-acute care episode payments and costs for the Medicare program. She also supports analytic database construction for the CMS Evaluation of Financial Alignment Initiative for Dual Eligible Individuals. Dr. Coomer also worked with the Dubai Health Insurance Corporation on the design and implementation of diagnosis related groups for hospital payment in Dubai.
Before joining RTI in 2010, Dr. Coomer was a researcher with the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute. She developed annual benchmark studies to provide policymakers and system stakeholders the ability to monitor system performance and conducted research on medical price regulation, pre-authorization requirements, and treatment guidelines.