Alina M. Czekai, MPH is Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Cohere Health, a digital prior authorization start-up that is transforming clinical care. She has a passion for engaging leaders across the public and private sectors to advance business and policy objectives that enable access to higher quality, value-based health care. In her current role, she collaborates across the health care delivery system to devise the company’s strategy for partnerships with technology solutions, clinicians, and other innovators and thought-leaders.

Previously, Alina served as a Senior Advisor to CMS Administrator Seema Verma, leading the agency’s relationships with the health care industry and maximizing public support for the CMS’s priorities and overarching mission, including leading patient and provider engagement during the COVID-19 public health emergency. She also was a co-designer of the CMS Innovation Center’s first multi-state rural model, the Community Health Access and Rural Transformation (CHART) Model. Prior to her service in the federal government, Alina led health plan and health system business development at Aspire Health, the leading provider of home-based palliative care. She was previously the Chief of Staff at the American Health Policy Institute (AHPI), where she managed the think tank’s research and policy agenda around the impact of the health policy environment on large U.S. employers.

Alina was a Mercatus Center Frederic Bastiat Fellow and she earned a BA in health policy from the University of Rochester and an MPH with a focus in health policy from The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.