Linda Bergthold is a senior advisor to the Center on Medical Technology Policy.  Linda has more than 20 years of experience in health care consulting and research to public and private purchasers and providers.

Prior to establishing her own consulting and research practice, she was a senior consultant and national thought leader for the health care practice in the Los Angeles office of Watson Wyatt Worldwide, focusing on evidence-based benefit design for large employers.

She has also been a vice president and head of the California office of The Lewin Group, a national health policy consulting firm. At Lewin, she focused on strategic planning, benefit design and technology assessment, and was a principal with the William M. Mercer human resources consulting firm as the leader of their Western Region managed care practice and national coordinator for health reform. She has been an Adjunct Professor at the Center for Health Policy at Stanford University doing research on medical necessity and coverage issues in managed care.

Linda worked on the benefit package for the Health Security Act as co-chair of the Benefits Working Group for the White House Health Care Reform Task Force in 1993. She currently serves as a consumer representative on the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee in Washington, D.C.  She is a board member of the California Technology Assessment Forum and the National Partnership for Women and Families and has represented Watson Wyatt on the Integrated Healthcare Association board and the National Business Group on Health’s Evidence-based Benefit Design Committee in Washington D.C.

Linda holds a B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California. She was a Pew Health Policy Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Health Policy, UCSF. She is a widely published author on benefit design, medical necessity and purchasing strategies, including “Medical Necessity: Do We Need It?” in Health Affairs 1995.  Her book, Purchasing Power in Health was published by Rutgers Press in 1990.

Linda.Bergthold@cmtpnet.org