Sean Tunis, MD, MSc, has been appointed as the Director of the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality (OCSQ) and Chief Medical Officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), CMS Administrator Tom Scully announced today.
"Dr. Tunis has been our acting chief medical officer for almost a year and has done a terrific job," Scully said. "He not only brings a vast amount of scientific understanding to CMS, but also brings a real world clinical perspective to his position. Not only is he a very smart doc, but he is a very good guy with excellent judgment."
Previously, Tunis was director of CMS’ Coverage and Analysis Group (CAG) within OCSQ. Under his leadership in CAG, the quality and scientific creditability of Medicare’s coverage decisions has increased significantly, and implemented new procedures that make the coverage process substantially more understandable and accessible for outside organizations.
Tunis was successful in increasing communication and coordination of coverage policy with other CMS components, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health.
In addition to his duties at CMS, Tunis is a practicing emergency room physician at a Baltimore city hospital and holds an adjunct faculty position in the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Tunis will serve as a senior advisor to the CMS administrator on clinical and scientific issues. He will also take a leadership role in the review and implementation of all quality, clinical, and coverage issues and policies that arise in the administration of CMS programs.
Prior to joining CMS, Dr. Tunis was a Senior Research Scientist with The Lewin Group, where he led the design and conduct of prospective comparative effectiveness studies. Dr. Tunis also served as the Director of the Health Program at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and as a health policy advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, where he participated in policy development regarding pharmaceutical and device regulation.