Dena Puskin
Health Resources and Services Administration
Dr. Puskin is the Director of the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth in the Health Resources and Services Administration. Prior to her current position, Dr. Puskin served as the Acting Director of the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP). Dr. Puskin has assumed many leadership positions within and outside of government on health technology issues, rural health, and health care reform. Prior to joining ORHP in 1988, Dr. Puskin was a senior analyst at Congress’s Prospective Payment Assessment Commission, where she developed the model for annual updates of Medicare payment rates to hospitals and worked on numerous economic issues related to rural hospitals and specialized hospitals in the U.S. (psychiatric, rehabilitation, and chronic disease hospitals). From 1982-1988, she was employed by the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association as a senior legislative analyst in Washington D.C. Dr. Puskin served as the Research Director at the Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency and as Assistant Professor of Community Medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry from 1977-1981. She has also served as Adjunct faculty at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
Dr. Puskin currently chairs the Joint Working Group on Telemedicine, a staff-level interagency committee to facilitate federal staff collaboration on promoting cost-effective telemedicine initiatives. She also is on the Board of the American Telemedicine Association. Over her 20-year Federal career, Dr. Puskin has spent considerable time educating the public through presentations in national forums and writing academic papers and reports on telehealth, rural health, and health care financing issues. In addition, she has served on volunteer boards addressing child care and elder care issues.
Dr. Puskin received her Sc.D. degree in Health Policy and Research from Johns Hopkins University, a M.S. degree in Community Medicine from the University of Rochester, School of Medicine and Dentistry, and B.A. and M.A. degrees in Biology from Boston University.
