In a recent announcement, CMS Administrator Seema Verma named Dr. Anand Shah, a radiation oncologist at the National Cancer Institute, as the new Senior Medical Advisor for Innovation at CMS.

Dr. Shah has previously worked at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he served as an advisor for the FDA Oncology Center of Excellence. He also served as the chief medical officer at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), and as chief resident at Columbia Business School, where he worked on medical payment and service delivery models including an advanced alternative payment model. He has additionally served as Associate Director of the Center for Excellence in Surgical Outcomes at Duke University.

Dr. Shah completed an MPH in health care management and policy from the Harvard School of Public Health while earning his MD from the University of Pennsylvania. He has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of State, and Radiation Oncology Institute, and was a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Scholar at the University of Toronto.

Reactions

The Chair of the American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Board of Directors, Paul Harari, MD, FASTRO, expressed support for this appointment in a press release, and writes that in his new role, Dr. Shah “will expand his already-extensive work in modernizing American health care, including efforts to improve patient access to high quality care through alternative payment models.” Harari additionally writes that “ASTRO offers our enthusiastic support to Dr. Shah, and we are eager to collaborate with him and the CMS team on initiatives that are critical to cancer patients and physicians, including the proposed alternative payment model for radiation oncology.”

The President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FACS, FASCO, also released a statement expressing support for Verma’s pick. She writes in part that Dr. Shah was an active ASCO volunteer before working for the government, and that "We are hopeful that Dr. Shah's experience treating people with cancer will inform CMS policies to address the high cost of prescription drug treatments, without compromising patient access to all of the services needed to treat their cancer.”