Lori Ferguson, MS

Lori Ferguson joined NCQA in May 2022 as Senior Vice President, Product and Customer Operations. In her role, she leads the organization’s strategy and execution to implement, deliver and service our products. Her addition signals the organization’s commitment to our stakeholders with a focus on innovation, continuous improvement and the customer experience.

Lori is a proven operational leader with significant experience working with NCQA products during her 20 year career in Medicaid and Medicare managed care. As a change agent, she has led a number of successful turn-arounds, a start-up and has extensive M&A experience. With a focus in Managed Long-Term Care, Dual-Eligibles, and Special Needs Plans, she understands the importance of high quality healthcare. In her most recent roles, Lori has served as Chief Managing Director for VNS Health and Chief Operations Officer at Magellan Health, both servicing the most complex members in New York City.

Lori is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and earned a Master’s in Applied/Organizational Psychology at Christopher Newport University and a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Radford University.
 

 
John Palmieri, MD, MHA

John Palmieri, MD, MHA, is a Senior Medical Advisor at SAMHSA and currently serving as the Acting Director for the 988 and Behavioral Health Crisis Coordinating Office. Prior to his arrival at SAMHSA, Dr. Palmieri was the Division Chief for Behavioral Healthcare at the Arlington County, Virginia, Department of Human Services. Dr. Palmieri is a licensed physician in the Commonwealth of Virginia and is Board Certified in Adult Psychiatry. He graduated from Brown University Medical School and completed his Adult Psychiatry Residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.
 

 
Suzanne Rabideau, MBA, MA, LPC

Suzanne Rabideau, Senior Consultant with Health Management Associates (HMA) currently is working with states, health plans, providers, and community stakeholders in advancing crisis systems and services. Prior to joining HMA, Suzanne’s career has included working as a mental health and family therapist, a state Medicaid leader, as chief executive officer for a behavioral health provider organization specializing in crisis services, and as a health and human services consultant.

In addition to focusing on crisis systems and services, Ms. Rabideau’s focus of work at HMA covers delivery system design including integrated approaches, system collaborations, learning communities, clinical practice, and operational transformation within and between health and human service providers. She enjoys helping others align clinical, operational, and financial strategies to achieve goals. Ms. Rabideau served as president and chief executive officer for the Crisis Response Network, a startup that became a national leader in crisis response services including call center, community response, crisis urgent care, and in-patient programs. She led the implementation of tech-enabled solutions to support evidence-based practices and meet and exceed operational and clinical outcomes.

She previously served the state of Arizona as a senior policy advisor for Medicaid programs where she led state agency projects, including implementing the largest behavioral health managed care Medicaid contract in the country. Ms. Rabideau designed and directed the restructuring of the state’s behavioral health regulating documents. She was part of a team charged with implementing a redesign of the state Medicaid behavioral health delivery system including crisis services across the crisis continuum.

Ms. Rabideau earned her master’s degree in business administration in health care management from Western International University, her master’s degree in family therapy from Ottawa University, and her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Arizona State University.
 

 
Christopher Sellers, MPH

With a BS in Biochemistry and an MPH in Epidemiology – Biostatistics from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Christopher Sellers began public service in 2001. With two decades of experience, Christopher has worked extensively with the development and refinement of quality of healthcare measures. Additionally, he has consulted with health agencies and like-minded partners to form comprehensive community health assessment plans. Most recently he has joined the Alabama Department of Mental Health to lead their analytic unit with specific interest in establishing a data repository for substance use data across justice, health and human service sectors statewide.