Educational Background
Boston College, B.S. in Finance, 2004
Oxford University, Study Abroad in Economics, Entrepreneurship and Management, 2003
New York University, M.P.A. in Health Policy and Management, 2009
University of Pennsylvania, M.B. in Biotechnology, Exp. 2011
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School), M.B.A. in Healthcare Management, Exp. 2011







Work History

Biography
My name is Amir Satvat and Jessica Leight and I created and update this website as the result of a dream: the desire to create a centralized, online repository of the highest quality information and analysis on public health and health policy for public consumption. There is no more pressing issue in our world than the appropriate provision and funding of health care and public health standards and the elimination of inequality for all people. Thus, we are devoting our lives to seeing that this undertaking is completed most responsibly, I predominantly from a health angle and Jess from an economic and social development angle, although overlap of focus between us is highly significant.


Perhaps most relevantly, personally, my sense of duty results, in part, from my background. I come from a Persian family filled with health care professionals, including 13 MDs and an obstetrician/gynecologist father. With such knowledge and concern for health issues surrounding me, I developed an insatiable passion for having an impact on health improvement at a young age.


In high school, realizing that several trends had begun to rip our health care system apart, I vowed to get the training and experience needed to better understand these complex problems and their potential solutions.  I decided to focus first on financial and economic training, which came both through my education at Boston College and Oxford University and work experience.


My work experience began at the age of sixteen, when I was hired by U.S. Trust Company of Connecticut to work as a summer analyst. My experience at U.S. Trust strengthened my skills in financial analysis and presentation, leading to a summer analyst position at J.P. Morgan in sales and trading. I used the J.P. Morgan experience to solidify my understanding of the capital markets and economic issues. These opportunities culminated in an offer to work for Goldman Sachs in the health care division of their investment banking group. 


At Goldman Sachs, I received a high level of exposure to the entire health care industry, and asked for, and received, the privilege of focusing on the managed care sector.  I was the analyst responsible for covering the entire universe of health care providers, and helped directly manage Goldman Sachs’ biggest client in this space, the UnitedHealth Group.  During my time at Goldman Sachs, we closed the acquisition of PacifiCare for UnitedHealth.


Through this unique merger experience, I learned the intricate details of managed care operations from a financial and operations perspective.  I witnessed the transfer of senior patients to Medicare Part-D benefits first-hand, and understood what the integration and combination of health care services really requires of patients, doctors and health care providers alike.


Through my many experiences in school, Goldman Sachs and other financial firms, I had a respectable comprehension of the structure and operation of health care companies in our country.  However, I still needed a deeper understanding of how health systems work and how health care payers and providers could work together to provide better medical coverage to our citizens without a meaningful sacrifice of quality.


I successfully applied to the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University for an MPA in healthcare policy and management.  My experience at the Wagner School has helped me understand the roles that government, private and non-profit organizations play in affecting the health care system.


During my time at NYU, I took a short break to work as a research associate at Citigroup in Emerging Medical Technologies. I provided coverage on a universe of six companies, including extensive reports, modeling and client interaction. The highlight of this experience was covering the TCT (Transcatheter Therapeutics) annual conference for the firm, largely solo.


Next, I successfully applied to the Wharton Health care Management MBA, a program I am currently attending. I knew that Wharton would complement my experience at NYU’s Wagner School and offer timely closure to the academic portion of my health care training.


In the summer of 2009, I received a LEND fellowship for a one-man effort to aid the conversion of the Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center, a freestanding clinic in the Bronx, from ICD-9 to APG Medicaid billing, preventing cuts of service for poor, at-risk children with conditions such as autism, mental retardation and schizophrenia.


Currently, at Wharton, I am serving as a research assistant to Dr. Lawton Burns, Head of the Wharton Health care Management Department, while completing my MBA in health care management.


Also, in 2010-2011 at Wharton I will be part of the only Field Application Project in development or non-hospital non-profit this year at Wharton, amongst 37 proposals . The Field Application Project is an undertaking for health care majors in the Wharton MBA program in the second year. The project that I will work on with my team, developing a sustainable business model for the Institute for OneWorld Health, is a proposal that I fought hard for in receiving department approval and in forming a group of sufficient size.


The Institute for OneWorld Health develops safe, effective, and affordable new medicines for people with infectious diseases in the developing world. The foundation received its first grant from the Gates Foundation in 2002 and currently has $90M at work for betterment of global health outcomes.


Our four-person team will help reevaluate the Institute’s business plan and ensure its continued survivability, continuing its important mission that benefits and heals the earth’s most under-served populations.


In January, 2010 I was asked to write a new chapter on comparative effectiveness for the seminal textbook Health Care Delivery in the United States, 10th Edition, by Jonas, Kovner and Knickman.


In March 2010, I was named a teaching assistant, on the basis of academic merit and knowledge of the health care industry, for the only health care major core course at Wharton, HCMG841: Health Services Systems, by Dr. Lawton Burns. This position is typically given to students who excelled in the course during the first year of classes.


In April 2010, I was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering for a M.B. degree in biotechnology, with an expected completion date of May 2011.


In May 2010, I received  the Wharton Ford MBA Research Fellowship to conduct research and complete a study on electronic medical records and their potential benefits to health systems.


Health care is everything to me and I feel well-positioned to comment on the industry, having stood at the crossroads of the many intersecting paths of health reform in our country. I have non-profit and for-profit connections, roots and education that balance the many varying skills needed to discuss, and play a role in enacting, meaningful health reform.


This site represents a labor of love, a summary compilation of all that I have learned about, and reflected upon, in the world of health. I hope you enjoy consuming the information here as much as Jess and I enjoy creating it and that you use your new knowledge not only to edify yourself but also to correct misunderstandings about health care held by those around you.


If we correct even one person's understanding of health care through our contributions to this site, then it was worth every second of effort in putting it together and working on it with Jess.


Enjoy!


-Amir

1.  "The Board Rotation Principle"  Monash Business Review (2008) 4:1, 38-39.

This paper asks if companies can resolve groupthink issues and find improved financial performance by instituting ideal rates of board turnover, sizes of board composition and adjustments of percentages of board membership comprised of independent external directors.

In-Progress
1. "Comparative Effectiveness." In Health Care Delivery in the United States, 10th Edition, ed. Anthony Kovner and James Knickman.  New York: Springer Publishing Company (2010).

This paper reviews the history, development, function and arguments for-and-against comparative effectiveness systems across the world, with a particular emphasis on the United States.

2. Book-Length Project (Topic TBD) with Professor Lawton Burns (2010).

This book will be a compilation of a series of health care case studies likely related to hospital operations and profitability in the United States.

1. Mozergy

My winning team, including Jeff LeBrun, Tony Gross, Mike Hartley and Ali Moazed was awarded $20,000 in the Wal-Mart Better Living Business Plan Challenge for developing a biodiesel company that produces nonfood-based renewable fuel while supporting sustainable development in Africa. The company, Mozergy, develops and propagates jatropha crops in Mozambique and other developing countries. Jatropha is a sustainable, low-cost, high-yield plant that produces oil-rich seeds. These seeds can be extracted and refined to produce biodiesel. Because jatropha is not edible and can grow on marginal land, it is not expected to impact food production.

1. The Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (2008-2009).

These presentations comprise a year-and-a-half long effort aimed at improving operations and financial sustainability at The Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center (CERC) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, an organization that provides a broad spectrum of clinical services for infants, children, and adolescents and, despite its name, adults, with problems that include physical, developmental, language and learning disabilities.

One of the largest centers of its kind in the United States, CERC is a voluntary, nonsectarian agency whose services are essential components of the care available in New York City and New York State to all children with developmental disabilities. CERC's professional staff provides over 58,000 diagnostic, therapeutic and related services to about 8,000 children and their families annually, while training close to 1,000 professionals each year.

CERC is a major component of the Rose F. Kennedy University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service (UCEDD), one of 67 designated regional centers that are federally funded to conduct interdisciplinary training, provide exemplary clinical services, furnish technical assistance, carry out research in the field of mental retardation and developmental disabilities, and create a bridge between universities and the community through various outreach and dissemination activities, and by direct consumer involvement.

2. Goldman Sachs (2004-2006).

These documents comprise a two-year effort to pitch a security to senior management at Goldman Sachs that I invented for hedging out health care exposure in pensions and other OPEB-structured vehicles. My work eventually reached the attention of the Chairmen of both our Financing Group and the Investment Banking Division. The final product was pitched to General Motors Executive Management.

3. New York University Financial Analysis Exercise (2008).

For a demonstration of how to complete financial analysis on health care companies, I showed several of my classmates how to write-up a full-blown report on UnitedHealth. This report features qualitative examination and excel mathematical examination.

I have made available for download a random potpourri of various thought-pieces I wrote for my own amusement and general intellectual reflection. They are combined in one PDF. Their titles are:

1. The Economic Sphinx's Important Riddle.
2. The "S Word."
3. To Mr. Obama: More Primary Care Physicians Please.
4. The World's Margin Call on America's Pipe Dream.
5. My Heartbreak Over Classical Music or Why The Fat Lady Is Getting Crushed.
6. Fifty-One Reasons I Wish I Lived In Norway (And Why You Will Wish You Did Too).
7. Obama Health Plan Analysis.