Dr. Straube, age 62, is the Immediate Past Chief Medical Officer for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), as well as the Immediate Past Director of the CMS Office of Clinical Standards & Quality (OCSQ). In his role as the most senior clinical advisor to CMS, Dr. Straube and his office spearheaded key initiatives including Medicare coverage decision-making, multiple national quality improvement collaboratives, CMS clinical quality measurement and information technology efforts, defining quality standards for U.S. healthcare facilities, development of Value-Based Purchasing models, and implementation of many sections of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Dr. Straube also Chaired the End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) and Clinical Laboratory Open Door Forum and acted as a senior advisor on ESRD and transplantation issues to the agency. Dr. Straube retired from CMS in February, 2011. Earlier, Dr. Straube was Vice President of Quality Improvement at Health Net, one of the industry's largest HMOs, and the CMS Regional Chief Medical Officer for California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and far Pacific Territories.
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. Dr. Straube completed an internal medicine residency at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, where he later served as Chief of the Division of Nephrology. He has also served as a Renal Fellow at Tufts University - New England Medical Center in Boston.
