Your Strategic partner in health care delivery system transformation

What We Do

Today's dynamic pace of change in health policy demands special expertise, hands-on senior level advocacy as well as political and media savvy.

That's what we do... and what is needed today to safeguard and enhance revenue in the current, challenging health care marketplace.

Ellen Murphy Meehan

Ellen Murphy Meehan

President

Max Meehan

Max Meehan

Advisor

Bios

Since founding the firm in 2006 Murphy Meehan has effectively designed and executed dozens of winning transformation strategies with their clients.

View Ellen's Bio → View Max's Bio →

Ellen Murphy Meehan

Ellen Murphy Meehan, the President of Murphy Meehan Strategies, thrives on simplifying health policy so that regulatory authorities and elected officials are inspired to solve thorny challenges. Since founding the firm in 2006 she has effectively created and executed dozens of winning strategies. She has also organized and successfully led coalitions of health systems and hospitals – relying on her roots in politics, business, health care and the media. A quick study at synthesizing health care reimbursement structures, value-based and incentive payments, Ellen works with clients to devise and execute strategies to enhance revenue. She is an expert at navigating the universe of health policy decision makers and influencers – so that even the most complex health policy challenge is resolvable.

With an MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business, a 10-year run as a community hospital vice president and a ringside seat observing state and federal politics for more than 20 years, Ellen is a trusted advisor. Her mastery of health care reimbursement, and how health policy advances, make her the ideal navigator for providers to retain to lead and execute strategies. She earned her Bachelor of Arts at Simmons College, spent a semester at the Sorbonne in Paris and has worked on political campaigns since grade school. Her favorite past times are watching her two teenage sons, Robert and Daniel, play soccer, basketball, baseball and lacrosse at the Groton School, and campaigning for women and minority candidates in Massachusetts, including Congresswoman Niki Tsongas (D-MA) whose first and succeeding campaigns she chaired, and Mayor Dan Rivera of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

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Max Meehan

Max Meehan is a special advisor to Murphy Meehan Strategies. He has previously worked on a variety of special projects, and prior to that as a college intern at Murphy Meehan Strategies. Max has worked closely with Ellen on various projects over the past five years, including the Delivery System Transformation Initiatives (DSTI) reporting to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Commercial Price Variation challenges for disproportionate share hospitals and the DSTI Learning Collaborative, where six Massachusetts hospitals shared best practices at sessions over a period of six years. Max graduated from Lowell High School in 2012 and graduated from Harvard College in 2016 with a degree in Chemistry and Minor in Health Policy.

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Our Services

  • System Transformation Consulting
  • Strategy Development and Design
  • Alliance and Coalition Development
  • Advocacy
  • Government Relations

Murphy Meehan Strategies provides a full range of health care system transformation consulting, and health provider regulatory and legislative advocacy services such as direct advocacy with executive and legislative branches of government, advice and strategy development, and monitoring administrative and legislative activity relevant to clients. Whether you seek to outsource your health policy, transformation consulting or government affairs role or engage additional talent and horsepower, Murphy Meehan Strategies delivers.

Ellen is a thought partner for health care enterprise chief executive officers and chief financial officers, and is well known for her work on behalf of providers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Murphy Meehan Strategies devises strategies that align specific health care provider client goals with state and federal policy initiatives. She focuses on maximizing opportunities to increase and safeguard revenue as industry and policy changes take shape, and developing alliances when needed to achieve a common goal.

Murphy Meehan Strategies has worked closely with health systems designing and implementing transformation plans that will bring success under value based contracting, global budgets, bundled payments and future risk arrangements.

Murphy Meehan Strategies' clients include safety net hospitals, community hospitals, academic medical centers, integrated community health systems, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, long-term acute care hospitals, imaging providers, and physician group practices.

  • Ellen is a driven and talented advocate for safety net providers in the Commonwealth. She is our strategic partner as we transform our health care delivery system to better serve low and moderate income patients across the state. She understands how health systems can partner with government payers to improve the health of the populations we serve.

    Kate Walsh, President & Chief Executive Officer

    Boston Medical Center
    Boston, Massachusetts

  • Ellen is tremendously talented at advancing critical Medicaid and Medicare payment opportunities at both the state and federal levels. Her work has resulted in our realizing tens of millions of dollars in incentive payments through the State's Medicaid Waiver. We rely on her to monitor opportunities and threats to safeguard and realize new revenue.

    Dianne J. Anderson, President & Chief Executive Officer

    Lawrence General Hospital
    Lawrence, Massachusetts

  • When I came to Massachusetts seven years ago from leadership roles at hospitals in both Texas, and Pennsylvanian, I initially sought out Ellen's talent to help me navigate opportunities and advocate for Signature. Ellen is exceedingly knowledgeable about healthcare from her hands-on experience as a hospital executive, and is well respected by our state and federal legislators and their staff. She has not only ensured that we realize over a hundred million dollars in transformation incentive payments Massachusetts and CMS made available for us to earn – she has executed our advocacy agenda and is an important part of our team.

    Kim Hollon, President & Chief Executive Officer

    Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital
    Brockton, Massachusetts

  • Ellen brings a wealth of experience in health policy making, hospital reimbursement, and the Massachusetts health care and political dynamic together to serve my community's needs and support our continued success at Holyoke Medical Center.  She is an incredible resource and thoughtful advocate for us, and is focused on delivering results.

    Spiros Hatiras, President & CEO

    Holyoke Medical Center
    Holyoke, Massachusetts

  • We engaged Ellen initially to help us problem solve and devise strategies to enhance our patient centered care and value to providers and payers. Over the past few years she has become a highly sought after advisor and strategist whose capacity to dig deep into issues and help us achieve the right outcomes has been invaluable.

    John Prochilo, Chief Executive Officer

    Northeast Rehabilitation Hospital Network
    New Hampshire - Salem, Nashua, Portsmouth and Manchester

  • Ellen's an extremely sophisticated and savvy strategist. She knows the industry in Massachusetts, how to navigate the most challenging issues and is always focused on the bottom line.

    Mark Taylor, Chief Executive Officer

    New England PET Imaging System
    New Hampshire and Massachusetts

Success Stories

Strengthening Dominant Market Position→

Enhancing Revenue→

Coalition Building for the Long Term Sustainability→

Safeguarding Revenue→

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Safeguarding Revenue

Overview

During a downturn in the Massachusetts economy when state revenues were declining, the State Administration included a provision in their budget proposal to limit the rate that Medicaid Managed Care Plans could negotiate to 105% of Medicaid fee for service rates, rendering it no longer a negotiation, and reducing by millions of dollars reimbursement for low income patient care to MassHealth beneficiaries, leaving high Medicaid providers with major cuts in reimbursement.

Approach

Working with key leaders in the House and Senate in Massachusetts, we brought the key stakeholders with the highest negative impact together to advance amendment language in the state budget to eliminate this language in the Governor's budget proposal.

Results

Both the House and the Senate adopted the amendment language in their budgets and the high Medicaid providers preserved their Medicaid Managed Care revenue for many years, providing safety net providers with significant support for care delivery to low income populations, largely in gateway cities in Massachusetts.

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Strengthening Dominant Market Position

Overview

A six-hospital health system in Massachusetts was being acquired by a private equity firm and converted to a for profit health system, likely bringing significant resources to bear and threatening competitors in several marketplaces in the State.

Approach

Working on behalf of three hospitals who shared a market with the new private equity financed system to build a coalition, Ellen and the hospitals engaged a former US Attorney as legal counsel, a national health economist who specializes in competition policies in health care, and public relations counsel. Murphy Meehan Strategies devised a strategy to advocate for the attorney general to monitor the actions of the new system.

Results

The Boston Globe editorial page wrote that the attorney general should impose protections and monitor the new system, after Murphy Meehan Strategies and the three hospitals engaged stakeholders to testify at community hearings, submitted a report drafted by the health economist on the likely impact of a private equity backed system in the marketplace. Ultimately, each of the hospitals who engaged Murphy Meehan Strategies maintained its dominant market position after the conversion of the competitor system.

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Coalition Building for the Long Term Sustainability

Overview

Massachusetts' innovative work under the federal Section 1115 Medicaid Waiver Authority provides a tremendous opportunity to creatively design for enhanced future care delivery and the resources with which to advance that design.

Approach

Working with the leaders in the Executive Office of Health & Human Services in Massachusetts, Congress and the State Legislature, a group of seven high Medicaid volume, low commercial volume providers coalesced and worked cooperatively with the State to design an incentive payment system that would provide over $200 million in sustaining support for providers to transform their care delivery and be positioned to embrace value based purchasing for all payers including Medicaid.

Results

The seven hospitals have designed and executed transformation plans that enable them to earn and realize over a billion dollars collectively in incentive payments over a period of six years, and are positioned to become accountable care organizations to manage population health under risk arrangements for the Medicaid population they serve.

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Enhancing Revenue

Overview

Health care reform in Massachusetts redesigned the payment system for care to the uninsured to a Medicare-like payment system. But Medicare is a poor outpatient payer and most uninsured care, particularly at safety net hospitals, is outpatient care (emergency services and ancillary services). Huge shifts in reimbursement away from safety net hospitals were going to result without modeling and advocacy to demonstrate the negative impact on the safety net.

Approach

Building a coalition of providers to share data and fiscal impact was the first step. Step two was gaining an audience with the agency responsible for the new payment design, for the finance officers of negatively impacted hospitals.

Results

The safety net providers, and ultimately all community hospitals received a 25% enhancement to their new Medicare-like payments for care to the residually uninsured after health care reform was fully implemented.

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