Qing Zheng, Ph.D.

Qing Zheng, Ph.D., MHSA, is a health economist with over ten years of experience working in health services and policy research. His primary research interest is in healthcare quality and costs, with a focus on post-acute care, long-term care and population aging. Dr. Zheng has expertise with quantitative methods and econometric models to design and conduct program evaluations as well as implementations of innovative payment models. In addition, he has extensive experience in managing and analyzing real-world healthcare data such as Medicare claims, clinical assessments, survey data, and Medicare cost reports.

At Abt Global, Dr. Zheng serves as project director for multiple projects with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). He leads a multi-disciplinary team to help CMS develop and refine the Five-Star Quality Rating System for nursing homes in the United States. He is also playing key roles on the implementation and evaluation of several Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) models, including the End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Treatment Choices Model implementation (subcontractor project director) and the Oncology Care Model evaluation (end-of-life analysis task lead).

Dr. Zheng has in-depth knowledge about nursing home staffing, quality, and public reporting. Through his work on the Five-Star Quality Rating System for nursing homes, he helped CMS successfully redesign its rating methodology for the Quality Measure domain, develop payroll-based staffing turnover measures, and refine case-mix adjustment methodology for staffing level measures. His research has been published in journals such as JAMA, Health Affairs, and Medical Care.

Expertise

• Nursing home quality, staffing, and payment
• Program evaluation and implementation
• Econometrics
• Medicare alternative payment models
• Quality measures and public reporting

Key Projects

• Improving Nursing Home Compare, CMS
• ESRD Treatment Choices Model Implementation, CMMI
• Quality Measures Implementation and Reporting, CMS
• Oncology Care Model Evaluation, CMMI

Publications

• Zheng, Q., Williams, C. S., Shulman, E. T., & White, A. J. 2022. Association between staff turnover and nursing home quality–evidence from payroll‐based journal data. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 2022 Sep;70(9):2508-2516.
• Hamilton, M., Juergens, M., Zheng, Q., Campbell, E., Plotzke, M. Home Infusion Therapy: Utilization Under the Medicare Part B Temporary Transitional Payment. Home Health Care Management & Practice. 2022;34(3):214-220.
• Zheng, Q., Christian, T., McClellan, S., Glass, R., Keating, N., Brooks, G., & Hassol, A. 2021. Impact of the Oncology Care Model on End-of-Life Care. Health Services Research, Vol.56, Issue S2, 18. 
• Williams, C.S., Zheng, Q., White, A.J., Bengtsson, A.I., Shulman, E.T., Herzer, K.R. and Fleisher, L.A., 2021. The association of nursing home quality ratings and spread of COVID‐19. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 69(8), pp.2070-2078.
• Keating, N.L., Jhatakia, S., Brooks, G.A., Tripp, A.S., Cintina, I., Landrum, M.B., Zheng, Q., Christian, T.J., Glass, R., Kummet, C.M. and Woodman, S., 2021. Association of participation in the Oncology Care Model with Medicare payments, utilization, care delivery, and quality outcomes. JAMA, 326(18), pp.1829-1839.