Chris McInnish

Chris McInnish has in-depth knowledge of Medicaid programs and data sources along with a passion for quality improvement, enabling him to bridge these disparate areas in his work.

At Mathematica, McInnish has worked on a host of state Medicaid projects, many of which involve working with state staff to develop quality measures and reports. This includes bringing specifications in line with state preferences and exploring available data to ensure the measures can be calculated and are measuring what should be measured. McInnish has also provided technical assistance to state Medicaid agencies on case management programs, quality measures, use of Medicaid data, program payment methodologies, and general program development.

In addition, McInnish has worked extensively with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’s) Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment Project, leading annual quality reviews and the implementation of Form CMS-416 replication using data from the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System Analytic Files (TAF). McInnish has also used TAF data to explore the replication of Core Set measures and to support rule development for CMS’s Quality Rating System. For a project team providing technical assistance on the use of immunization registries, McInnish brought experience from Alabama on how to use state registry data to support Child Core Set measure reporting.

McInnish joined Mathematica after retiring from the Alabama Medicaid Agency. While there, he led the development of the Quality Analytics Division and subsequently began the reporting of the CMS Adult and Child Core Set measures. McInnish was also project director for the Alabama Medicaid Primary Care Case Management and Health Home programs. Before working at the state’s Medicaid agency, he served as deputy and acting commissioner for the Alabama Department of Children’s Affairs. This experience gave him an in-depth understanding of state capabilities and challenges.