Lauren Block, MPA has more than twenty years of health care policy, strategy, and operations expertise promoting policies and programs that expand access to high quality and affordable coverage and services. Lauren has worked primarily at the state and federal levels to optimize effectiveness of new policies and programs. As Vice President for Medicaid Policy & Programs, Lauren leads business development efforts and oversees diverse projects related to Medicaid policy design and implementation, stakeholder engagement and technical assistance, and strategic planning.

Lauren’s areas of expertise include health workforce, data sharing, trauma and resilience, and eligibility and enrollment. She has spent most of her career working at the intersection of policy and operations helping state and federal leaders identify strategic opportunities for stakeholder engagement, designing and delivering technical assistance, and encouraging adoption of best and promising practices in Medicaid and the Health Insurance Marketplace.

Prior to joining Aurrera Health Group in 2021, Lauren was a Program Director at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, where she provided technical assistance and consulting services to states on a variety of topics including health workforce, cross-sector data sharing, telehealth, health care transformation, Marketplace policy, rural health, and maternal and child health. She worked closely with governors’ offices, Medicaid teams, and Departments of Insurance to advance policy goals that increased access to health care services, coverage, and addressed health related social needs. Lauren supported states by facilitating dialogue across agencies, sectors, and with key stakeholders, aggregating best and promising practices, and providing policy subject matter expertise to senior state officials. She continues much of this work through her engagement with clients at Aurrera Health.

From 2003 to 2015, Lauren served in several key roles at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). She most recently served as Director of the Division of Eligibility & Enrollment Policy & Operations at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO). In this role she led a 50-person team that established the infrastructure for the federal Marketplace and regulated state-based exchanges for individual market coverage during initial implementation of the Affordable Care Act. She also served as special assistant to the directors of CCIIO and the Office of Communications and as an analyst in the Office of Legislation and the Office of Financial Management.

Lauren holds a master’s degree in public administration from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Brandeis University. She and her husband live in Denver, Colorado with their amazing foster children and their two dogs, Winston and Rufus.