Norwalk Named Acting CMS Administrator

Baltimore

CMS Deputy Administrator Leslie Norwalk has been named acting CMS administrator by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt.

She assumed duties Oct. 15 after Mark McClellan resigned from the post.

Norwalk has served in positions including chief operating officer, acting director of the Center for Beneficiary Choices and counselor to former Administrator Tom Scully since joining CMS five years ago. After Scully’s departure, Norwalk remained as the agency lead in carrying out Medicare reform legislation.

“I am committed to a stable, seamless transition and will work to move forward as quickly as possible,” Norwalk wrote in an e-mail to CMS staff.

Norwalk also announced in the e-mail that Herb Kuhn will become acting deputy administrator of CMS. For the past two years, Kuhn has served as director of the Center for Medicare Management, where he has been responsible for developing reimbursement policies and regulations for the Medicare program.

Before joining CMS, Norwalk practiced law in the Washington office of Epstein Becker & Green and served in the first Bush administration in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. She earned a juris doctor degree from the George Mason University School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in economics and international relations from Wellesley College.

Kuhn is a former corporate vice president for advocacy at Premier Inc., a not-for-profit hospital alliance. He also served in the American Hospital Association’s Washington office as vice president for federal relations and has worked on Capitol Hill in the office of former Rep. Bob Whittaker, R-Kan.

After leaving CMS, McClellan joined the American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Institution Joint Center for Regulatory Studies to work on ideas to improve U.S. health care.