ABOUT

A National Healthcare and Health Policy Expert

Seema Verma is one of the country’s most decorated and influential healthcare leaders.​

​

Her journey to becoming Executive Vice President and General Manager at Oracle Health started from the front lines of the healthcare system.

​​

Early Career

​

Seema Verma began her career in Washington, D.C., working with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials on HIV/AIDS policy for public health departments. Eventually, she transitioned to working at the Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County (HHC), a municipal corporation that operated the public hospital, community health centers, and a nursing home, and the local public health department.

In this role, she witnessed the day-to-day issues providers and patients face, giving her deeper insight into problems within the healthcare system. Her initial role was as the Administrator of the Healthy Babies Consortium, focusing on maternal and child issues. She proceeded to work her way up to Vice President of Policy and Planning for all of HHC.

Shaping Health Policy

Starting in 2001, Seema founded a health policy consulting firm that helped states and the private industry with a range of healthcare issues. She immediately began working with the state of Indiana on a grant addressing the uninsured. In conjunction with Former Governor Mitch Daniels and his team, Seema was the architect of the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP), one of the first Medicaid consumer-directed health programs for the uninsured to use Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Seema was also responsible for assisting in negotiating the approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS).
 
Outside of her work on the HIP, Seema’s consulting firm worked with other states on their response to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid and the private sector to help implement and adapt to its new regulations and other healthcare issues.
 
She worked alongside Mike Pence, the Governor of Indiana at the time and future Vice President, on the Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0. Seema helped negotiate its waiver of approval from the CMS, just as she did with the first iteration of the plan.

​

Journey To The White House

In 2016, industry leader Seema Verma was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Pence to be the Administrator of the CMS. As Administrator, she:

• Oversaw health insurance programs for more than 140 million Americans through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Insurance Exchanges

• Oversaw a budget of $1.3 trillion and more than 6,000 employees

• Oversaw the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation

• Set the regulatory guidelines for the American healthcare system

​

Seema developed CMS’s vision and implemented numerous strategic initiatives, including Patients Over Paperwork, Advancing Interoperability, and Price Transparency, which reduced regulatory burden, advanced value-based care and rural health, and saved the healthcare system billions of dollars.

During her tenure, Seema’s policy reforms increased market competition and interoperability, while reducing regulations. She also successfully advanced value-based care in primary care and state government flexibility. Under her leadership, Medicare Advantage began its rapid growth trajectory, and premiums dropped to historic lows.

A Leader During The Pandemic

When the global pandemic hit the United States, Seema served on the White House COVID-19 Task Force. There, she led efforts to drive telehealth, remote care, Hospital Without Walls, and Hospital at Home across the healthcare system while creating flexibility for health providers to augment the healthcare workforce, expand services and testing, and ensure access to vaccines and therapeutics. Her work with Operation Warp Speed ensured that Americans had access to the COVID vaccines for free. She was one of the longest-serving Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Administrators in modern history.

Modern Healthcare ranked her as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” in 2020 and one of the nation’s “Top 25 Women Leaders in Healthcare” in 2019. Seema has written extensively about a range of healthcare issues and has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Health Affairs, the Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and a number of other publications. She has also spoken on several news networks, including Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, CBS, ABC, etc.

​

Recent Work And Positions

​​

Following her role with CMS, Seema was a Senior Advisor at TPGa and a member of the Cressey Distinguished Executive Council. She served on the boards of Monogram Health, Lumeris, Wellsky, ClaimsXten, and ShiftKey. She also worked as an advisor to both early-stage and Fortune 500 companies. Currently, Seema serves on the boards of Tapestry Health and the University of California Schaeffer Center Advisory Board.

​

​​She was appointed as General Manager and Senior Vice President at Oracle Health in April 2023. Less than a year later, in January 2024, her role was expanded to Executive Vice President, where she now oversees Oracle Health, bringing her extensive experience and background to the company.

​

Seema has two other important roles as wife to Sanjay Mishra and mother to her two children, Maya and Shaan.