Our Teams

Laura Spicer is senior director of health reform studies at The Hilltop Institute. In this position, she leads a team of researchers responsible for program evaluation, data analysis, and policy development for health reform initiatives, Medicaid, and other publicly funded programs. She has been extensively involved in health reform implementation in Maryland since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. Many of her projects involve analyzing Medicaid and commercial health care claims and other data on an extensive number of issues related to quality assurance, access to care, service utilization, enrollment trends, and costs. She assists states in developing policies and meeting federal reporting and waiver requirements. Laura oversees Maryland Medicaid’s total cost of care reporting, access monitoring review plan, lead screening reporting and monitoring, and a number of other routine and ad hoc reports. She was the project manager for Maryland Medicaid’s Behavioral Health System of Care Initiative and staffed the Finance Subcommittee of Governor Hogan’s Commission to Study Mental and Behavioral Health in Maryland. She also currently directs Hilltop’s work with the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, Hilltop’s hospital community benefit engagement with the Maryland Health Services Costs Review Commission, and Hilltop’s work with the Prescription Drug Affordability Board. In addition to these state-based projects, she works on other research grants and contracts. In 2012, Laura was a recipient of the Hilltop Award for Innovation for her participation in the development and implementation of the Hilltop Health Care Reform Simulation Model, a financial model used for Maryland and New Mexico to determine the costs and savings of implementing federal health reform.