Barry M. Straube, M.D. is currently the Acting Director of the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality (OCSQ) and Acting Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). In his OCSQ role, Dr. Straube oversees several major elements of the CMS quality and clinical policy portfolio, including the development of national coverage policies and quality standards for Medicare and Medicaid providers; quality measurement and public reporting initiatives; and manages the Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) program. As Acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Straube serves as a senior advisor to the Administrator on clinical and scientific policy. He also co-chairs the CMS Council on Technology and Innovation, and serves as Executive Director for the CMS Quality Council, two internal CMS bodies that coordinate policy development on technology and quality, respectively. In addition, Dr. Straube serves as the CMS liaison to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the National Quality Forum, the Institute of Medicine, the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society, and several other public and private sector national councils and committees. As the only nephrologist at CMS he also co-chairs the End Stage Renal Disease and Clinical Laboratory Open Door Forum and acts as a senior advisor on ESRD and transplantation issues to the agency.

Dr. Straube received an A.B. degree (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Princeton University and received his M.D. degree from the University of Michigan Medical School. He completed an internal medicine residency at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and subsequently served as a Renal Fellow at Tufts University-New England Medical Center in Boston. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Nephrology.

During 15 years (1980-1994) of clinical and academic practice in nephrology and transplantation, he simultaneously performed a number of senior physician staff and executive roles at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. Among other roles he was Chief, Division of Nephrology for six years there, as well as serving on the Board of Directors of both CPMC and two IPAs. From 1994-1999, Dr. Straube served in a number of senior physician management positions for subsidiaries of Foundation Health Systems (now known as Health Net), serving as Vice President, Quality Improvement, and Senior Medical Director at Health Net in California. He also served as a board member or committee member for numerous healthcare and quality improvement organizations and has had ongoing responsibilities for resident training in academic resident training programs.

Prior to assuming the Acting CMO and Director OCSQ roles, Dr. Straube was the Chief Medical Officer for CMS, Region IX (California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Far Pacific Territories), based in San Francisco. In that role Dr. Straube was the senior clinical executive in Region IX and played a role in all aspects of CMS’ major programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. He was the recipient of the CMS Administrator’s Achievement Award, the agency’s highest honor, following his first year of public service at CMS (2001) and has also been the recipient of The Secretary’s Award for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in 2003, as well as receiving a special Administrator’s recognition reward in 2003 and a group Administrator’s Achievement Award 2004.

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