Lauren Block, MPA

Lauren Block, MPA is the Vice President for Medicaid Policy & Programs at Aurrera Health Group. She has more than twenty years of health care policy, strategy, and operations expertise promoting policies and programs that expand access to high quality and affordable coverage and services.

Lauren’s areas of expertise include health workforce, trauma and resilience, and data sharing. She has spent most of her career working at the intersection of policy and operations helping state and federal leaders identify strategic opportunities for stakeholder engagement, designing and delivering technical assistance, and encouraging adoption of best and promising practices. Lauren is a director for Pathways to Resilience, helping state and local agencies develop cross-sector approaches to becoming healing-centered, trauma-responsive organizations. In addition to providing technical assistance across a national network of federal, state, and community leaders, she supports organizational assessments and transformation to create more trauma-responsive workplaces and service providers. Lauren also developed and led the California ACEs Aware technical assistance program for grantees.

Prior to joining Aurrera Health Group, Lauren was a Program Director at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, where she provided technical assistance and consulting services to states on a variety of topics including trauma-informed care and ACEs. From 2003 to 2015, Lauren served in several key roles at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). She most recently served as Director of the Division of Eligibility & Enrollment Policy & Operations at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO).

Lauren holds a master’s degree in public administration from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Brandeis University. She and her husband live in Denver, Colorado with their amazing foster children and rescue pups, Winston and Rufus.