Carol Irvin

Carol Irvin’s career has focused on using data to assess policies and programs related to health care access, particularly for vulnerable populations. She has extensive experience evaluating programs that extend coverage or transform health care services for people of all ages and with a wide range of chronic conditions and disabilities.

Irvin currently directs Mathematica’s Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) Business Information System Business Analytics and Data Quality Development contract. This project supports the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services as it upgrades the national Medicaid and CHIP data systems, primarily the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS), and enhances its ability to make data-driven decisions about Medicaid and CHIP policies and programs. Under this contract, Mathematica monitors the quality of state T-MSIS data submissions, provides technical assistance to help states improve their T-MSIS data, designs and produces research versions of the T-MSIS data, conducts stakeholder engagement and training activities, produces reports and other analytic products that respond to stakeholder needs, and provides subject matter expertise on data design and management. This contract also provides technical support for the Medicaid and CHIP Accountability Scorecard, a new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services initiative to improve the performance of Medicaid and CHIP programs.

Her program evaluation work includes leading Mathematica’s national evaluation of the Money Follows the Person demonstration, a Medicaid program that seeks to help states develop and strengthen approaches to transitioning people from institutional to community-based care. She also directed Mathematica’s evaluation of Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration programs. Her state-level evaluation work includes leading an evaluation of Oregon’s Medicaid 1115 demonstration that seeks to transform how Medicaid services are managed and delivered. She also conducted an evaluation of the Healthy Indiana Plan, an innovative program that provides a high deductible health program for uninsured, working age Hoosiers. In other work, she contributes to studies of Medicare-Medicaid enrollees and evaluations of statewide plans to improve services of children with autism spectrum disorders.

Irvin, who publishes in peer-reviewed journals including Pediatrics and Psychiatric Services, presents at professional meetings sponsored by AcademyHealth and the American Public Health Association. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.