nkf
NK Fleming Consulting
Medicare Payment Policy · Healthcare Innovation

Medicare payment systems are complicated.
I can help you make sense of them.

Practical advisory for healthcare organizations, technology companies, and government contractors navigating complex Medicare policy, payment, and operations challenges.

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25 yrs at CMS GS-15 Senior Advisor CMS Honor Award
Nora K. Fleming
Nora K. Fleming, MBA
Founder, NK Fleming Consulting
Former Acting Director, Chronic Care Policy Group, CMS
About

25 years inside CMS, now applied to your problem.

Nora rose from IT specialist to GS-15 Senior Advisor and Acting Director at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Her career spanned Medicare fee-for-service payment policy, data systems, and the CMS Innovation Center — a rare combination of deep policy knowledge and operational fluency.

She has written proposed and final rules for Medicare acute and post-acute payment systems, designed and operationalized alternative payment models, and managed pricing software for every major Part A and Part B payment system. As Acting Director of the Chronic Care Policy Group, she led a team of 50 staff overseeing six post-acute payment systems.

Curious, practical, collaborative. She works best when she's digging into a real problem alongside your team — understanding the constraints, cutting through the complexity, and helping you find a path that actually works.

Why work with Nora

A rare combination of policy depth and operational fluency.

Expertise across policy, payment, and operations

Most advisors know one side of the picture. Nora has worked across Medicare payment policy, rulemaking, operational execution, data systems, and IT modernization — so she understands not just what the rules say but how they get implemented and where things break down in practice.

She has written the rules your organization responds to

Nora has authored proposed and final rules across Medicare acute and post-acute payment systems. That drafting experience gives her an insider’s understanding of regulatory intent, operational impact, and implementation risk to help you formulate an effective response.

Works across all sides of Medicare

Her practice serves healthcare organizations, health tech companies, government contractors, and federal agencies including CMS directly. That range means she understands the pressures and priorities on all sides of the table.

Practical, workable solutions

She doesn't arrive with a predetermined framework. She listens, gets into the details, and works with your team to find answers that hold up in practice. If there's a simpler path through a complex problem, she'll find it.

CMS Honor Award · 2022 & 2023
Plus individual performance awards every year from 2015 through 2024.
Services

Engagements that require deep Medicare expertise and a practical eye.

Medicare FFS payment policy & operations

Acute and post-acute systems including IPPS, OPPS, SNF PPS, Home Health, Hospice, IRF, IPF, LTCH, ESRD. Policy design through operational implementation.

Rulemaking & regulatory guidance

Interpretation and analysis of proposed and final Medicare rules. Effective comment letters and response strategies grounded in firsthand drafting experience.

Fee schedule expertise

Physician, Ambulance, ASC, Clinical Lab, DME, and ASP drug pricing. Annual rulemaking cycles and the operational changes that follow.

CMMI innovation & alternative payment models

Model design, operational execution, financial modeling, and stakeholder engagement for bundled payments, specialty episodes, ACOs, and Part B drug models.

IT modernization & data strategy

Medicare payment system modernization, cloud migration, AI integration, and data interoperability — grounded in direct CMS project leadership.

Contract & proposal support

Capture strategy, technical approach, and requirements translation for organizations pursuing or executing CMS work.

Programs & payment systems

Deep familiarity across the Medicare landscape.

Part A — Prospective Payment Systems
Inpatient (IPPS) · Outpatient (OPPS) · Skilled Nursing (SNF PPS) · Home Health · Hospice · IRF · IPF · LTCH · ESRD
Part B — Fee Schedules
Physician Fee Schedule · Ambulance · ASC · Clinical Lab · DME · ASP Drug Pricing
CMMI Innovation Models
Bundled Payments (CJR/BPCI) · Specialty Episodes · Part B Drug Models · Accountable Care / ACOs · Oncology Models · Payment Modernization
Who I work with

Healthcare, tech, and government — across the table.

01
CMS and federal agencies seeking experienced subject matter expertise
02
Hospitals and health systems navigating Medicare payment and APM participation
03
Post-acute providers — SNFs, home health agencies, hospices, IRFs
04
Health tech companies building for the Medicare FFS market
05
Government contractors pursuing or executing CMS work
06
Investors and startups with Medicare payment-adjacent questions
Contact

No sales pitch.
Just a direct conversation.

Tell me about the problem you're trying to solve. If I can help, we'll talk about how. If I can't, I'll often know who can.

Email
nora@nkflemingconsulting.com
Based in Ellicott City, MD · Remote & in-person engagements
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