Renee Smiddy

Renée Smiddy has over 15 years of experience in healthcare research, provider payment system design, and Medicaid and Medicare policy. Her primary expertise includes health finance, financial modeling and hospital payment policy.

Smiddy is an expert in Medicaid hospital payment policy and supplemental payments, and recently served as the supplemental payment expert for the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission Hospital Payment Index Technical Expert Panel. She provided policy and methodological expertise on comparing Medicaid base and supplemental payments across states and relative to Medicare. Her work spans fee-for-service and managed care payment structures, including directed payments and upper payment limit programs. She currently serves as project director supporting Medicaid supplemental payment reporting and guidance, overseeing the collection, validation, and public reporting of provider-level supplemental payment data submitted by state Medicaid agencies.

Smiddy has experience leading large-scale data collection, survey design, and analytics initiatives, including directing data aggregation and reporting for nearly 330 hospitals across three states under a CMS Hospital Improvement Innovation Network contract. Her background integrates clinical quality improvement, health information technology, and financial analytics to support evidence-based policy development and operational decision-making.

Prior to joining AIR, Smiddy served as senior director of finance policy at the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, where she led initiatives related to Medicaid and Medicare payment policy, supplemental payments, and payer relations, and represented hospitals in legislative, regulatory, and insurer-facing settings. She is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan Medical School, where her research focuses on the ethical implementation of AI within healthcare revenue cycle operations.