Want Healthcare LLC

About Jay

Jay Want, MD, is the owner and principal of Want Healthcare LLC.  He consults for a wide variety of clients, including the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  He is also the Chief Medical Officer for the nonprofit Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC), a public-private partnership that houses data from the state’s All Payer Claims Database, and supplies those data to the public and private entities to the benefit of the people of the state.  He served on the board of the non-profit Rocky Mountain Health Plan, based in Grand Junction, Colorado.  In January 2012, he was appointed an Innovation Advisor for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI).  He also currently serves as a commissioner on the Colorado Commission for Affordable Health Care (CCAHC).  He is an affiliate member of Atul Gawande’s Ariadne Labs.  This think tank’s purpose is to create scalable healthcare solutions that produce better care at the most critical moments in people’s lives, everywhere.

From 2009 to 2012, he served as founding chairman of the board of CIVHC.  For eight years he was President and Chief Executive Officer of a Denver management services organization that is now part of the MSSP ACO program.  He has served on task forces for the Colorado Division of Insurance, the Colorado Trust, the Colorado Hospital Association, the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform, and as a fellow of the Colorado Health Foundation.

In 2009, he assisted Senator Michael Bennet in drafting the Care Transitions Act, ultimately included in the Affordable Care Act under Section 3026.  He has spoken nationally for the Brandeis Health Industry Forum, the Integrated Healthcare Association, AcademyHealth, and the American Medical Association.   He was the 2010 recipient of the John K. Iglehart award for leadership in health care from the Colorado Health Foundation.

Jay is board-certified in internal medicine, and was a primary care internist in private practice for ten years.  This gives him a personal understanding of the challenges that health care reform poses for practicing physicians.  He passionately believes that the current system is broken, and that physicians can and should lead the transformation to a more effective, efficient, and humane system for providers and patients alike.

He received his internal medicine training at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and his medical degree from Northwestern University.  He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society.  He grew up outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and graduated from Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, a very long time ago.