Farah Hanley

Managing Principal

Health Management Associates

Lansing, MI

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Farah Hanley is a healthcare executive with more than 30 years of experience with state Medicaid programs, policies, and budget initiatives. She is a subject matter expert in all aspects of Michigan’s Medicaid program. Her experience includes service delivery model development, system design, and financing across managed care, behavioral health, long-term care and other healthcare sectors. Her government experience uniquely positions her to support community partners engaged with publicly funded programs. 

Before joining Health Management Associates, Farah held multiple senior positions within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), including senior deputy director of the financial operations administration, acting director of the department, state Medicaid director, and state behavioral health commissioner. She most recently served as chief deputy of health, leading the strategic policy vision for the State of Michigan Medicaid program and state psychiatric hospitals and centers. She led the largest scale Medicaid health plan procurement in Michigan Medicaid and provided direction for all behavioral health services and policy initiatives, including development of intensive specialty community-based services to address hospitals’ inpatient psychiatric bed crisis. 

Farah has extensive experience in budgetary and financing oversight, including implementing cost control measures in government and healthcare. As senior deputy director of financial operations she was responsible for the $35 billion Health and Human Services agency budget, including finance, audit and contractual services. She negotiated the executive branch’s health and human services public policy priorities through demanding political and legislative budget environments throughout the seven years she served in this role. 

She is a skilled change manager, restructuring organizations and refining business processes through collaboration, communication, and positive cultural change. Farah was a lead member of the governor’s transition team tasked with leading the largest state department merger in state government history and led the initiative that restructured the financial services area of the two largest departments in state government into one Financial Operations Administration, which she led for seven years. 

While at the state budget office, Farah served as division director of the health and human services office, working alongside the state budget director and the state MDHHS director to negotiate Michigan’s Medicaid expansion. Her research, analysis, and months of legislative negotiations contributed to passage of the Healthy Michigan Plan, the largest sweeping healthcare reform legislation in the state, accounting for healthcare coverage for more than 650,000 Michigan residents.  

In addition to her expertise in Michigan’s Medicaid program, Farah has experience supporting state Medicaid programs across the country. In her early career, working with The Medstat Group, she was a senior consultant on innovative program advances and provided analytic services to inform future Medicaid policy priorities for six different states. 

Farah earned her master’s degree in business administration from Wayne State University and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan.