Melissa Mannon, MPP

Associate Principal

Health Management Associates

Washington, DC

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Melissa Mannon is an alternative payment model expert with experience developing, implementing, and evaluating alternative payment models in Medicaid and Medicare. Her experience includes assessing opportunities to align financial and non-financial incentives to improve accountability, outcomes, and value in the healthcare system.

In her role at HMA, Melissa supports clients in design, development, implementation, and policy for payment innovations. She provides guidance on how to align payment with services that provide a higher quality of life and outcomes for people seeking care and helps clients understand how Medicare and Medicaid payment policies—particularly alternative payment models—and changes to those policies will impact their businesses and strategies.

Before joining HMA, Melissa was director of the Office of Value-Based Purchasing for Virginia’s Department of Medical Assistance Service, Virginia’s Medicaid agency, and oversaw $350 million in financial incentives. She was responsible for leading the agency’s development and implementation of payment and contract policy innovations that integrated performance accountability into the Virginia Medicaid program. She was the alternative payment models expert in Virginia and provided technical guidance to agency leadership, two governors’ administrations, and legislators.

Melissa served as associate director of policy development at the American Hospital Association. She focused on government program sustainability, healthcare workforce, and rural healthcare access. Her consulting experience includes time at the American Institutes for Research and The Lewin Group, where she worked on federal alternative payment models with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.

Melissa understands government-funded healthcare programs, federal and state policymaking, research methods, and policy strategy. She has extensive experience conducting stakeholder convenings and successfully developing policy options with stakeholders, even with groups representing different viewpoints. She has worked on payment models in maternal health, joint replacement, primary care, nursing facilities, and Medicaid managed care. Melissa has qualitative research experience in methods, data collection, and analysis and is experienced in drafting and fielding questions from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. She is also experienced in obtaining approval for Medicaid state plan amendments and preprints under Medicaid managed care.

Melissa earned a master’s degree in public policy from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in public health policy from Cornell College.