About US
Cathy Kaufmann, MSW
Cathy has been a leader in transforming the delivery of health care and building systems of learning to support that transformation. Prior to forming Kaufmann Strategies, Cathy was a Principal with Health Management Associates, where she worked with state Medicaid agencies, county governments, Medicaid managed care plans and health systems across the country. She is deeply knowledgeable about designing and implementing transformation projects that can drive change in the health care delivery system and across the community.
Cathy’s previous work includes federal and state policy advocacy, public communications, extensive stakeholder engagement, strategic planning and coalition leadership. During her time at the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), Cathy served as director of the Transformation Center, an office created to support Governor Kitzhaber’s Health Systems Transformation initiative and spread innovation across Oregon’s Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs). She also led efforts to implement the Affordable Care Act and was responsible for helping streamline and improve Medicaid enrollment. Cathy previously served as the administrator of the Office of Healthy Kids and the Office of Client and Community Services, the agency’s medical eligibility and enrollment office. Healthy Kids was the largest expansion of health coverage in Oregon since the inception of the Oregon Health Plan in 1994 and successfully enrolled over 100,000 children into health coverage in a little more than a year. In recognition of her success at reducing the number of uninsured children, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) named Cathy a recipient of the ECHOE (Excellence in Children’s Health Outreach and Enrollment) honor in 2011.
Her policy advocacy experience includes serving as the enrollment program director at Families USA. In that role she was responsible for setting the organization’s enrollment policy and working with consumer groups across the country on outreach and enrollment for Medicaid, CHIP and the marketplaces. Cathy also has served as the policy and communications director for Children First for Oregon, a statewide child advocacy organization focused on health care access and affordability, family financial stability and child welfare. She also co-chaired the Human Services Coalition of Oregon, a public policy coalition made up of over 100 health, housing and human services organizations.