Carrie H. Colla, Ph.D.

As Director of Health Analysis at CBO, Colla leads a team of economists to research, develop, and refine the models used to estimate the economic and budgetary effects of health care policy for the Congress. In this role, she formulates and implements the strategic agenda for the work of the Health Analysis Division. She collaborates with key Congressional staff to identify important health policy issues of legislative interest and communicates CBO research on policy options and considerations.

Prior to joining CBO, Colla was a Professor at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, where she taught health economics. Her research portfolio focused on value, physician payment, delivery system reforms, health insurance markets, and rural health care. Her work is aimed at improving the quality, accessibility, and cost of health care.

Colla’s investigator-initiated research examined health system performance and the effectiveness of payment and delivery system reforms, including accountable care organizations. Her empirical studies include the effects of changes in Medicare reimbursement for physicians and institutional providers on high-need, high-cost patients; the prevalence and drivers of low-value health care services; and labor market effects of health insurance expansions, among others. Colla was the lead investigator for the annual National Survey of Accountable Care Organizations (NSACO) from its inception in 2012 through 2021, and she was a lead investigator in Dartmouth’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Center of Excellence to Study High-Performing Health Care Systems.

Dr. Colla participated in the 2017-2018 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellows program, with a placement in the House of Representatives and as a Senior Advisor to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. In 2020, Dr. Colla was selected as an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Scholar by the National Academy of Medicine. From 2020-2021, Dr. Colla was a member of the Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee, an independent federal advisory committee making recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on payment models.
Colla led the payment workgroup for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee on “Implementing High-Quality Primary Care.”
Colla received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, and her MA in economics and PhD in health policy from the University of California, Berkeley.