Laura A. Tollen, MPH

Senior Policy Consultant

Policy Expertise:

• Delivery System Integration
• Benefit Design & Consumerism
• Insurance Market Competition

As Senior Policy Consultant with the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy, Laura works primarily in two broad areas: insurance market structure and functioning; and, delivery system organization. Her recent work has focused on the potential of organized delivery systems to mitigate health care cost increases and improve the quality and safety of care. Other projects examine trends in benefit design and the implications of increased consumer cost-sharing. Additional areas of expertise include small-group insurance markets, health care purchasing pools, and risk adjustment.

Prior to joining the Institute, Laura was Senior Analyst and Project Director at the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, a DC-based think tank. In that position, she provided technical assistance to states seeking to use Medicaid or SCHIP funds to buy into employer-based health insurance. Laura's other experience includes work as a Senior Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in San Francisco and as a Policy Analyst in the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.

Laura received a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and a masters of public health with an emphasis in health policy, also from U.C. Berkeley.