Joshua Liao | Value & Systems Science Lab

Joshua M. Liao, MD, MSc

Dr. Liao is an internal medicine physician at the University of Washington. He is an Associate Professor and the Associate Chair for Health Systems in the Department of Medicine in the UW School of Medicine, as well as the Medical Director of Payment Strategy at UW Medicine. He is an an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health in the UW School of Public Health.

He completed medical school at Baylor College of medicine and trained in internal medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital where he was also a Clinical Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Liao has committed his career to improving health care payment and delivery. He works on this mission in several ways, including local system change, scholarship and evaluation, and policy. Currently, he provides recommendations about payment models to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services through service on the Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC). Dr. Liao also serves on national committees for the American College of Physicians and a payment advisory group for the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Dr. Liao presented at a PTAC Public Meeting about Advancing Equity Through Alternative Payment Models (September 2021; presentation starts at the 44:31 mark)

Dr. Liao also works with state Medicaid programs on payment and delivery issues. Previously, he was an advisor to the American Medical Association's RVU Update Committee (RUC), which provides recommendations to Medicare about how to value physician work when setting payment rates.

His scholarship focuses on how systems of financing and delivering care work together with human behavior to affect health outcomes. Equity in payment and care delivery redesign is a key focus of this portfolio, which spans federally funded grants, collaborations, and advocacy work. For instance, Dr. Liao spearheads Health Equity Conversations, a limited series featuring the work of people and groups working to improve equity through payment and other systems change.

He has published 300+ articles, including over 170 in peer-reviewed medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Affairs, the Annals of internal Medicine, and the British Medical Journal.

Dr. Liao has given over 70 national and international presentations in a range of clinical, policy, and practice transformation forums. 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. He has been interviewed for a number of national publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, and the Hill.