The Arc of Health Care Reform Is Long, but It Bends towards Health

Alice Hm Chen, MD
Chief Medical Officer, Covered California

Dr. Alice Hm Chen is chief medical officer at Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace, which actively works to ensure that Californians can find affordable, high quality coverage. In this role she is responsible for health care strategy focused on quality, equity, and delivery system transformation with the goal of improving health services provided through Covered California’s contracted health plans in service of improving access and outcomes for all Californians.

Prior to joining Covered California, Dr. Chen served as deputy secretary for policy and planning and chief of clinical affairs for the California Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS). She led many of the Agency’s signature health policy initiatives on affordability and access, and played a leadership role in the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the areas of strategic reopening, hospital surge planning, equity, data analytics and therapeutics.

She has a long history of leadership in enhancing access and quality of care for vulnerable communities through patient care, teaching, policy and advocacy, delivery system innovation, and administrative leadership across a variety of settings, including community health, philanthropy and academia. Dr. Chen spent 15 years on the faculty of the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine based at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where she served as its chief integration officer and founding director of the eConsult program.