Health Care Economist and Practice Area Lead, Forecasting and Economic Analysis
B.A., economics, Haverford College; M.S., economics, University of Michigan
As Practice Area Leader, Mr. Hufford is responsible for providing leadership, managing the daily operations, setting policy, and making critical decisions related to the practice area. He is also responsible for the supervision of the practice area’s technical, research, and support staff as well as monitoring project-related activities to ensure work quality and timeliness. Mr. Hufford ensures client satisfaction and contract compliance with all required deliverables and services. He develops and implements marketing and business development strategies. He interacts with a diverse group of external customers and collaborators as well as internal contacts at all levels of the organization. Independent judgment is required to plan, prioritize, and organize a diverse workload.
Mr. Hufford has supported various offices within the TRICARE Management Activity, including the Health Program Analysis and Evaluation Division (HPA&E), the Management Control and Financial Studies Division (MC&FS), and the Defense Medical Facilities Office and their predecessors for virtually his entire career. While he has experience analyzing several types of Military Health System (MHS) workload data, his primary expertise is in Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) population data processing and analysis, where he is a recognized expert. Mr. Hufford supported HPA&E on several projects, including geographical information systems (GIS) studies and support, TRICARE evaluation report support for the Institute for Defense Analyses, and Managed Care Forecasting and Analysis System (MCFAS) validation and verification. He recently managed the day-to-day activities of the Altarum Institute team by providing data, modeling, and geospatial analysis support to the National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics.
Mr. Hufford also recently concluded his work as a Project Leader, directing all software development and maintenance and data processing activities for MCFAS, a decision support system forecasting beneficiaries eligible for care in the MHS. In this capacity, he was responsible for working with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Population and Resource Projection Working Group to define requirements; overseeing software updates and testing; performing data analysis, processing, and testing; developing methodology and model algorithms; designing and implementing parameter estimation techniques; ensuring appropriate functional content and accurate forecasts; developing parameter estimation techniques and formulating modeling methodology; and presenting all assumptions, methodology, and results to DoD and Services representatives. He modified the processing of active-duty Service members and their family members to incorporate final Base Realignment and Closure 2005 Commission recommendations.
Mr. Hufford led the enhancement of MCFAS retiree forecasting model (to include gender and incorporate newly available inputs from the DoD Actuary), resulting in a model consistent with DoD Actuary retiree forecasts. He led the development of MCFAS retiree family member and survivor forecasting models, replacing earlier models forecasting these beneficiaries. These models were built using actuarial principles and are integrated with each other and with the retiree forecasting model. This involved developing forecasting software (in C) and estimating parameters from Fiscal Years 1998–2001 MHS population data (with analysis conducted in SAS).
Mr. Hufford led MHS Data Repository (MDR) DEERS Point-in-Time; Virtual Storage Access Method MDR 2004 (VM4); and Longitudinal VM4 processor development, including data analysis supporting requirements definition, tracking requirements changes, testing, and documentation. This also involved development and implementation of quality control requirements. Processors were developed in C, while testing software was developed in SAS.
Mr. Hufford is currently responsible for maintaining MDR and MDR Mart DEERS data processor functional specifications; identifying file extracts, fields included in each extract, and logic for appended fields; and data analysis to support specification development. He has led several project teams analyzing long-term DoD health care requirements and costs in support of facilities planning at more than 20 DoD facilities, ranging from clinics to medical centers. Studies included detailed analysis of military population, health care cost, use data, Civilian Health and Medical Provision to the Uniformed Services claims and standard reports, and other federal and civilian sector health care data to determine the most cost-effective facility sizing solution.
Mr. Hufford assisted in developing original nonlinear regression systems investigating the historical allocation of resources across DoD military treatment facilities and performed subsequent updates. Separate models were estimated for inpatient nonclinician expenses, inpatient clinician salaries, and ambulatory expenses. Results were validated by using current and subsequent years’ data.
Mr. Hufford has spent his entire career, spanning more than 20 years, at Altarum and its predecessor, Vector Research, Inc. He holds an MA in economics from the University of Michigan and a BA in economics from Haverford College.
Areas of Expertise
Economic Analysis and Forecasting
Military and Veterans Health