Marilyn Bartlett, as administrator of the Montana State Employee Health Plan, disrupted the status quo by implementing Medicare rate reference-based contracting with all Montana hospitals, enhancing primary care through near-sight health centers, moving to a transparent, pass-through PBM, eliminating duplication of vendor services, and improving data access and analytics. Actuarial projections showed the plan would be at -$9 million in plan reserves in two years, but her efforts led the plan to reserves of $112 million in the two years. For her efforts, Fortune Magazine selected Marilyn as #13 of The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.

Marilyn currently serves as a Senior Policy Fellow for the National Academy of State Health Policy (NASHP), where she supports states in lowering healthcare costs through legislative efforts, data analytics, and development of financial models. She is the lead developer of the NASHP Hospital Cost Tool, an interactive online tool, which utilizes hospital Medicare Cost Report data to calculate various hospital metrics used to support hospital and health system financial analysis and health policy.