Darin Gordon is widely regarded as one of the most influential Medicaid leaders in the United States. Over a career spanning more than 25 years, he served as the longest-tenured Medicaid director in the country, led a landmark state healthcare transformation, advised more than 35 states, and built multiple advisory firms now recognized as national resources on Medicaid strategy and payment reform.
Darin served as Director and CEO of TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program, from 2006 to 2016, a decade during which he served under both Democratic and Republican governors. He led an $11 billion enterprise serving more than 1.5 million Tennesseans, maintaining the lowest cost trend in program history and some of the lowest nationally, achieving a record-high 95 percent patient satisfaction score, and driving nationally recognized innovations in managed care and value-based payment reform. Upon his departure, Governor Haslam said Darin had ‘literally saved Tennessee taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.’
Before becoming director, Darin served as TennCare’s Chief Financial Officer, reducing expenditures from $8.6 billion to $6.9 billion in a single fiscal year and cutting audit findings from 39 to 4. His path to TennCare was as personal as it was professional: when his first child was born during college under circumstances that made the pregnancy a pre-existing condition, Medicaid covered the delivery. That experience, he has said, inspired a career devoted to serving the very program that helped bring his son into the world.
Today, Darin serves as Founding Partner of Speire Healthcare Strategies and President and CEO of Gordon and Associates, advising government agencies, payers, providers, and investors on Medicaid strategy, managed care optimization, and value-based purchasing. He is an Operating Partner on the Cressey and Company Distinguished Executives Council, an External Strategic Advisor to Sellers Dorsey, a Commissioner on the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), and a board member of Addus Homecare, Unified Care Group, HHAeXchange, Upperline Health, and the National Academy for State Health Policy.
He contributes expert perspective to Lifeline on Medicaid policy, managed long-term services and supports, value-based care for aging and vulnerable populations, and the intersection of Medicaid managed care and connected health innovation.
