Karla López de Nava
Karla López de Nava is an expert on healthcare policy and quantitative analysis, focusing on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contracts on Medicare payment policy, value-based care model design, operation, implementation, and evaluation. She has over 15 years of experience managing federal and state projects, directing, and overseeing multidisciplinary teams of senior researchers in advanced statistical analyses to address complex questions.
Dr. López de Nava currently co-leads the Payment Modeling Support Task for the Quality Payment Program (QPP) Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) Customer and Program Support Services contract. In this role, she provides Medicare payment and statistical analysis expertise to inform QPP MIPS policy changes. She also oversees a variety of business development activities to support the growth of AIR’s Health Division portfolio.
Prior to joining AIR, López de Nava served as a vice president at the Lewin Group, where she provided subject matter and technical expertise across all areas of the State Innovation Group Multi-Payer contract. As a Medicare payments expert, and on behalf of CMS, she led the design of the methodology for estimating and validating financial benchmarks and capitated payments approaches, including Vermont’s Medicare ACO Benchmark and All-Inclusive Population-Based Payment. She also led the performance monitoring of Maryland’s Total Cost of Care Model and oversaw all activities related to its implementation and operation. She also lent her analytic expertise in the Bundled Payment for Care Improvement initiative leading researchers in the construction of a comparison group for physician group practices and investigating variation in Medicare savings.
Dr. López de Nava has also conducted studies on behalf of the Department of Justice, the Agency for Health Care Research, the California Department of Public Health, and the California Department of Social Services.
