Darshak Sanghavi, MD, is the Chief Medical Officer of UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare & Retirement, the largest U.S. commercial Medicare program. Earlier, he was Chief Medical Officer at OptumLabs, overseeing a large portfolio of industry-leading projects with dozens of academic, government, and industry partners.
Before then, he was a member of the Obama administration, as the Director of Preventive and Population Health at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, where he oversaw the development of large pilot programs aimed at improving the nation’s health care costs and quality. In this capacity, he was the architect of numerous initiatives, including the $157 million Accountable Health Communities model, the 3 million member Million Hearts Cardiovascular Risk Reduction model, and the $1 billion Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program. Dr. Sanghavi was also a fellow and a managing director of the Brookings Institution, and associate professor of pediatrics and the former chief of pediatric cardiology at UMass Medical School.
Before then, he was a member of the Obama administration, as the Director of Preventive and Population Health at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, where he oversaw the development of large pilot programs aimed at improving the nation’s health care costs and quality. In this capacity, he was the architect of numerous initiatives, including the $157 million Accountable Health Communities model, the 3 million member Million Hearts Cardiovascular Risk Reduction model, and the $1 billion Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program. Dr. Sanghavi was also a fellow and a managing director of the Brookings Institution, and associate professor of pediatrics and the former chief of pediatric cardiology at UMass Medical School.
He is an award-winning medical educator, who has worked in medical settings around the world and published dozens of scientific papers on topics ranging from the molecular biology of cell death to tuberculosis transmission patterns in Peruvian slums. A frequent guest on NBC’s Today and past commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered, Dr. Sanghavi is a contributing editor to Parents magazine, a health care columnist with Slate, and has regularly written about health care for the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post. His best-seller, A Map of the Child: A Pediatrician’s Tour of the Body, was named a best health book of the year by the Wall Street Journal.
He previously worked for as a U.S. Indian Health Service pediatrician on a Navajo reservation. Educated at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, he completed his pediatrics residency and cardiology fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston.
He previously worked for as a U.S. Indian Health Service pediatrician on a Navajo reservation. Educated at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, he completed his pediatrics residency and cardiology fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston.