Jennifer Lyons

Jennifer (Jenny) Lyons is an expert in the delivery, coordination, and integration of physical and behavioral health services for Medicaid beneficiaries, with a focus on substance use disorder. She helps clients effectively manage, implement, and monitor innovative demonstrations and models and meet the needs of states and program participants.  

Lyons currently leads the monitoring team on the Maternal Opioid Misuse Model Implementation and Monitoring contract, which helps the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation monitor model implementation, improve awardee data quality and performance, and determine awardee payments. She also provides technical assistance to participating state Medicaid agencies and their care delivery partners.

Previously, Lyons led a team helping the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) oversee the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of section 1115 demonstrations to address opioid and other substance use disorders in more than 30 states. Lyons has also led development and testing of state-level quality measures of physical and behavioral health care integration for CMS’s Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program. For the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, she has evaluated the implementation of several Health Care Innovation Award demonstrations that coordinated or integrated physical and behavioral health care. In addition, she has contributed to other federal mixed-methods evaluations such as the Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Services Demonstration for CMS, and the Primary and Behavioral Health Care Integration program for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Lyons is a licensed master social worker and a certified project management professional. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Psychiatric Services and The Foundation Review. She holds master’s degrees in clinical social work and public policy studies from the University of Chicago, along with a graduate certificate in advanced alcohol and other drug abuse counseling.