Laura Christner

Laura is a healthcare professional with over 25 years of experience, including 15 years in Medicare Advantage. She brings expertise in developing and executing new MA product and benefit strategies, including market assessments, benefit design, bid work and benefit and vendor implementations. Before consulting, Laura led the product development team at Horizon BCBSNJ where she managed several MA product launches, including DSNP and most recently a joint venture PPO/HMO product portfolio, supported pricing strategies for regional products, and owned business requirements for benefit coding, implementations of supplemental benefits, and product deliverables for open enrollment readiness.

Laura brings a unique perspective, having worked on both the provider and payer sides of the business. Laura’s previous experience includes providing medical cost performance analyses of Medicaid line of business and performing market analyses for sales at a provider-sponsored managed care company, financial analysis on -risk contracts for a physician group, and program planning support and research for expansion of services, including a new sub-acute care unit and ambulatory surgical center, at a health system.

Laura is highly knowledgeable of CMS product and benefit regulations, including supplemental benefits, service area expansions and reductions and she also has experience in commercial products (Individual Health Care, Small Employer Health) and data analytics. Laura has a Master of Health Science degree in Health Finance and Management from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Muhlenberg College.