Denise H. Clayton, Ph.D.

Denise H. Clayton, Ph.D. is part of the Center for Healthcare Economics and Policy. Dr. Clayton has over 15 years of healthcare economics and analytics experience serving as trusted advisor to healthcare payers, providers, life sciences organizations, and governments.

Dr. Clayton is an expert in health economics with a specialty in impact analysis and program evaluation, health equity, risk adjustment, and quality measurement. Over her career, she has helped clients expand value-based arrangements to novel settings, understand the impact of new technology on key outcomes, and navigate evolving payment and policy landscapes. Her experience includes cost-benefit analysis, mixed methods program evaluation, real-world data analysis, policy impact analysis, and supply and demand forecasting.

Dr. Clayton has conducted research to identify the impact of new software-as-a-service tools used by private payers to improve care coordination. She used health insurance claims and vendor data to identify the impact of this new software on healthcare cost and utilization. In addition to quantitative analyses, she has also conducted qualitative research, interviewing key stakeholders, leading focus groups, and conducting surveys to better understand the drivers of outcomes identified through economic modeling as well as critical factors for success. Dr. Clayton also led research quantifying the impact of the State Innovation Model initiative in Idaho, the effect of dissemination of evidence-based recommendations for sickle cell disease, as well as forecasting and simulation work for healthcare supply and demand and projected impact of second opinion services.

Dr. Clayton’s work has been featured in Fierce Healthcare, Health Payer Intelligence, Healthcare Innovation, The Triangle Business Journal, Nature Reviews: Drug Discovery, and Business Wire on topics such as value-based care, social determinants of health, artificial intelligence, and electronic prior authorization. Her peer-reviewed research has appeared in the Journal of Health Economics and the Journal of Health Economics and Outcomes Research.

Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Dr. Clayton led Health Economics and Evaluation research for private payers and providers at RTI Health Advance. She also served a health economist for RTI International’s Health Care Financing and Payments program. In this role, she supported the implementation and evaluation of value-based payment models for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, including both the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight and the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation. Dr. Clayton also served as a strategic advisor to biopharmaceutical companies at AVOS Life Sciences (now Syneos Health). Dr. Clayton received a Doctorate in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and two Bachelor degrees in Economics and Applied Mathematics from North Carolina State University.