Neil McCray

Neil McCray specializes in data analytics for Medicaid. They have contributed to research and evaluations related to state Medicaid policies, supported state value-based purchasing programs, and assisted with capitation rate setting for Medicaid managed care.

McCray leads the financial analysis task and related quantitative analytics for the Hope and Opportunity in Many Environments project with Iowa Medicaid. This work involves assessing status quo utilization of Iowa’s home and community-based services and estimating financial and other impacts of potential policy and program changes. They also assist with quality assurance and review of analytics tasks related to the unwinding of the public health emergency for the Medicaid and CHIP Learning Collaboratives project.

Before joining Mathematica in 2023, McCray served as senior economic advisor for Virginia Medicaid (and previously as acting director and senior researcher in the Office of Value-Based Purchasing).

McCray holds a Ph.D. in health services research from George Mason University’s (GMU’s) College of Health and Human Services, an M.P.P. from GMU’s Schar School of Policy and Government, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Cornell College.

In addition to analyzing and improving Medicaid generally, McCray is passionate about the intersection of Medicaid and child maltreatment: their Ph.D. dissertation assessed the effect of Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions on child maltreatment, and they have experience identifying child maltreatment in Medicaid claims and encounter data.