Bios

Ms. Braid-Forbes is the owner and founder of Braid-Forbes Health Research. She has extensive experience in health services research and policy consulting and has worked in the health care delivery and insurance sectors as well. She has modeled the Medicare payment methodologies for inpatient hospital, outpatient hospital and physician practice expense. She has co-authored several published studies of the costs and outcomes associated with medical technology. She started her consulting career at Lewin-VHI (now The Lewin Group). Earlier consulting work focused on Medicaid policy development and program implementation, particularly managed care initiatives. Ms. Braid-Forbes holds a Bachelor’s degree in business from Georgetown University and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Yale University.

Michelle McCrea, M.S., Senior Associate

Ms. McCrea conducts healthcare data research using the Medicare Standard Analytic claims data files, MedPAR, National Inpatient Sample, and other databases. Prior to joining Braid-Forbes Health Research in 2013, Ms. McCrea was a director in hospital reimbursement and financial planning in the Greater Boston area. In her past roles, she specialized in managed care contract analysis, financial modelling, hospital cost reporting, and financial statement analysis. Ms. McCrea holds a Master of Science in Health Policy & Management from Harvard University School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University.

Marla Kugel, M.P.H., Senior Associate

Ms. Kugel has over a decade of experience advising stakeholders on healthcare payment and quality policy. She is a subject matter expert on Medicare payment systems and pay-for-performance programs; she has presented nationally on both for provider audiences. She has extensive experience with complex reimbursement impact models, payment system replication, quality performance evaluation, analyses of large scale administrative claims databases, and disease profiling.  Prior to joining Braid-Forbes Health Research, Ms. Kugel was an Associate Director at Xcenda, LLC, leading policy and reimbursement analytics as well as market access strategy for a variety of provider and manufacturer clients. Past roles include Principal Research Scientist at Premier, Inc, and Principal consultant at The Moran Company. Ms. Kugel received her M.P.H. from Yale University, with a concentration in chronic disease epidemiology and a B.S. in Biology and Society from Cornell University.

Kevin Forbes, Ph.D., Senior Economist

Dr. Forbes provides analytic support when projects call for advanced statistical or econometric analysis. Dr. Forbes has published numerous peer-reviewed econometric articles. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland.

Inga Marie Kvalsvik Gulliksen, BA (Hons.) Physiology

Ms. Gulliksen joined Braid-Forbes Health Research as a Research Assistant in July of 2021. She has experience with statistical analysis from research projects during her Bachelor’s degree using Graphpad PRISM and completed SAS Programming 1 in advance of taking her position. During her two years at the company, she has advanced her SAS programming skills. Ms. Gulliksen is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, where she was awarded a BA (Hons.) in Physiology.

Mike Manocchia, Ph.D., Senior Scientist

Dr. Manocchia is a health services researcher with 30+ years experience leading and carrying out health analytic research and evaluation projects. He has evaluated interventions in digital health, disease management, case management, wellness, behavioral health, pharmacy, substance use/addictions, as well as new medical technologies. He has designed and completed both large scale and small-scale evaluation research studies using a mixed methods approach (both quantitative and qualitative methods). He is particularly interested in looking at the impact of medical care innovations on health outcomes and to further understand health disparities within various groups (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, and social class). He has also taught undergraduate level medical sociology for over 14 years at the University of North Florida. Dr. Manocchia has a PhD in Sociology (Medical) from Northeastern University and a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Connecticut.

Tanya Thompson, B.Sc., Mathematics and Computer Science

Tanya is an experienced technology and business management professional, having provided a range of business, IT, and procurement advisory services to her clients over the years. Before joining Braid-Forbes, she was responsible for leading the design and development of an online platform for a startup, while also working part-time with the School of Computer Science within the Technological University of Dublin as an Adjunct Lecturer. The previous years were spent as a consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Jamaica and Ireland helping companies to: review and improve their business processes, identify their business information and data requirements, develop IT strategies and policy documents, oversee tender exercises for the procurement of IT software and outsourced services, and design and oversee the delivery of large-scale technology infrastructural projects. Some of these companies included Irish health sector organizations such as the Rotunda Hospital, the Mater Private Hospital, Beaumont Hospital, and the Health Service Executive. Tanya has a B. Sc. (Hons) in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica.