George L. Oestreich, Pharm.D., MPA

Dr. Oestreich is providing key strategic consulting on Medicaid issues including health information technology, decision support, program design and care coordination policy development. A major interest is developing transparent integrated patient care management and coordination solutions into current practice. He has unique and comprehensive experience in pharmacy benefit design coupling integrated pharmacy services into mainstream care coordination and service delivery. Dr. Oestreich served as Deputy Division Director, Clinical Services, for MO HealthNet (MHD), the Missouri Medicaid agency from August 2006 until February 2011.  In this position he developed clinical payment policy and related payment edits.  He coordinated health information technology for monitoring, support of edits and decision support.  Also in his venue was the development and implementation of disease management and care coordination services.  The later resulted in a positive return on investment and improved patient outcome indicators. Dr. Oestreich served as Director of Pharmacy for the agency from 2001 to 2006.  Under his leadership, the MHD was an early innovator in Medicaid pharmacy programs integrating aggressive maximum allowable pricing, clinically sound step therapy, productive supplemental rebate programs, high tech prior authorization and physician-pharmacist disease management.  These programs provided cost avoidance for the agency that averaged over $100 million annually. In a recent program review the Lewin Group stated, “Pharmacy program leadership staff have an exceptional level of Medicaid and prescription drug management expertise and stand out among Medicaid pharmacy staff nationwide” Dr. Oestreich earned his BS in Pharmacy from the University of Missouri-KC, his Master of Public Administration from University of Missouri-Columbia and his Doctor of Pharmacy from Kansas University.