JOSHUA LIAO

​Previously, Dr. Liao served as Associate Chair for Health Systems in the Department of Medicine and enterprise medical director at the University of Washington, where he provided leadership to system-wide payment strategy with emphasis on value-based care and contracting. In Washington, he founded a nationally recognized policy evaluation unit that became the formal evaluation partner for the Washington Health Care Authority, the largest purchaser of health care services in that state. In that work, Dr. Liao led collaborative evaluations informing decision-makers on pressing issues including primary care delivery and telemedicine. Dr. Liao's prior work at UTSW also includes service as the Division Chief of General Internal Medicine, the Walter Family Distinguished Chair in Internal Medicine, Director of Research Methods for the Clinical and Translational Science Award, and founder and executive lead of the Clinical Research, Evaluation, and Data Office. ​

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An internationally recognized health systems expert, Dr. Liao is the first person in history to serve simultaneously on both the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which provides recommendations on the Medicare program to the US Congress, and the Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee, which provides recommendations to the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services. His policy experience also includes service on the RVU Advisory Committee, the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network Patient Empowerment Workgroup, and national advisories through groups such as the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians. He has advised state policymakers leading Medicaid and other public agencies and served as an expert on funding and accountability issues as part of the National Academy of Medicine’s Commission on Investment Imperatives for a Healthy Nation.

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Over his career, Dr. Liao's scholarship has focused on how systems of financing and delivering care work together to improve patient and population outcomes. An accomplished with continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Liao has served as PI on grants totaling over $15million, published over 400 articles, and given nearly 100 national and international presentations (Review a sample of Dr. Liao's publications). His ideas and insights have appeared in outlets such as the Washington Post, Forbes, STAT, the Boston Globe, NPR, Harvard Business Review, the Seattle Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. ​​

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Dr. Liao earned degrees magna cum laude in English Literature and Biochemistry from Rice University, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and his medical degree cum laude from Baylor College of medicine, where he was inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha and the Gold Humanism Honor Society. Dr. Liao trained in internal medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and completed the Management and Leadership Track. He was a Clinical Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Senior Fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained his policy training.