Abe Sutton
Abe Sutton serves as the Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and Deputy Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS). Before assuming this role in January of 2025, he was a Principal at Rubicon Founders where he co-founded two health service companies; Honest Health, which focuses on enabling primary care physicians, and Evergreen Nephrology, which focuses on enabling nephrologists. Sutton focused on health policy with the federal government from 2017 to 2019, serving at the National Economic Council, Domestic Policy Council and Department of Health and Human Services. In these roles, he coordinated health policy across the federal government, with a focus on the shift to paying-for-value within Medicare, increasing choice and competition in health care markets, and updating the federal government’s approach to kidney care.
Sutton started his career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company, where he worked with clients in the health sector. He holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and undergraduate degrees in political science, management, and health care management and policy from the Wharton School and the College at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2018, he was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 for Law and Policy.
Arrah Tabe-Bedward
Arrah Tabe-Bedward is the Deputy Director of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation. Ms.Tabe-Bedward comes to the Innovation Center with a strong background in Medicare. She previously served as the Director of the Medicare Enrollment and Appeals Group (MEAG) at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). As MEAG’s Director, Ms.Tabe-Bedward was responsible for all enrollment and appeals policy under the Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS), Medicare Advantage (MA), and Medicare Prescription Drug (Part D) programs, and had shared responsibility with the Social Security Administration on Medicare eligibility, enrollment and low-income subsidy issues. She also had oversight responsibility for all Medicare appeals operations for the FFS, MA and Part D Qualified Independent Contractors, the appeals units of the Medicare administrative contractors, and CMS’ Beneficiary Notice Initiative, which includes provider-issued notices such as the Important Message from Medicare and the Advance Beneficiary Notices of Noncoverage. Ms.Tabe-Bedward has a JD from the University Of Maryland School Of Law and an MS in Public Service Management from DePaul University. She initially joined the federal government as a Presidential Management Fellow. In addition to MEAG, she worked in CMS’ Program Integrity Group and Office of Legislation.
Ellen Lukens
Ellen Lukens is the Deputy Director of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMS Innovation Center). In this role, Ms. Lukens leads policy development at the CMS Innovation Center. Ms. Lukens has deep experience both within and outside the government tackling complex health policy issues. Prior to this role, Ellen served as the Group Director of the Policy and Programs Group (PPG) within the CMS Innovation Center, where she led the team that provides cross-cutting support for Center-wide policy and portfolio management, including related to the Advanced Payment Model (APM) portion of the Medicare and Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). Ms. Lukens also served as the Division Director for Ambulatory Payment models, where she led development of physician-focused specialty care models, including the Oncology Care Model. Prior to joining CMS, Ms. Lukens led the Provider Practice at Avalere Health. In that role, she worked with hospitals, physician groups, and post-acute care providers on many policy and strategy issues, including developing analytic tools to improve provider performance and to evaluate participation in CMMI models. Prior to Avalere, Ms. Lukens held policy roles in hospital associations. Ms. Lukens began her health policy career as Presidential Management Fellow at CMS. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and a Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan.
CMMI Functional Statement
- Identifies, validates and disseminates information about new care models and payment approaches to serve Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries seeking to enhance the quality of health and health care and reducing cost through improvement.
- Consults with representatives of relevant Federal agencies, and clinical and analytical experts with expertise in medicine and health care management, including providers, payers, states, businesses, and community agencies, to develop new and effective models of care.
- Creates and tests new models in clinical care, integrated care and community health, and disseminates information on these models through CMS, HHS, states, local organizations, and industry channels.
- Performs rapid cycle evaluation of innovation and demonstration activities to determine effectiveness and feasibility for broader dissemination, scale, and sustainability.
- Works closely with other CMS components and regional offices to study health care industry trends and data for the purposes of designing, implementing, and evaluating innovative payment and service delivery models, and to disseminate information about effective models.
- Creates and tests innovative payment and service delivery models, building collaborative learning networks to facilitate the collection and analysis of innovation, as well as the implementation of effective practices, and developing necessary technology to support this activity.
- Creates and tests innovative payment and service delivery models, developing fellows with expertise in innovation, demonstration and diffusion to help support the introduction of effective practices across the nation.
- Carries out core business functions (e.g., budget, facilities, HR, communications).