Ronald Kline, MD
Chief Medical Officer, Healthcare and Insurance (HI), U.S. Office of Personnel Management
Ron Kline is a board-certified pediatric hematologist/oncologist and the Chief Medical Officer for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). In that role, he serves as the resident medical expert with program responsibilities encompassing the health insurance industry, health policy, population health, benefit design, standards of care, quality improvement, and regulatory initiatives. Part this role includes oversight of health insurance plans providing coverage to 8.2 million federal employees, retirees and their families through the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program and the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP).
Prior to assuming his role at OPM, he was a medical officer in the Patient Care Models Group at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) for almost five years. During this time, he was the clinical lead for the Oncology Care Model (OCM), the Medicare Care Choices Model (MCCM), and the Radiation Oncology Model (ROM). He was also a CMS representative to Vice President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative. As a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health Policy Fellow in 2013-14, he focused on health policy in the office of Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden and at CMMI.
He has been a clinical pediatric hematologist–oncologist for over 30 years, serving as the medical director of the Pediatric division of Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada, the largest multispecialty oncology group in Nevada, immediately prior to accepting his RWJF fellowship. He continues to be clinically active as chief medical officer, working as a pediatric Emergency Department physician at St Agnes Medical Center in Baltimore and as a pediatric hematology/oncology locums physician at Kalispell Regional Medical Center in Montana.
Kline has held leadership positions in local and statewide organizations, primarily focusing on health policy and children’s issues. He is past president of the Clark County Medical Society and the Nevada State Medical Association, a former alternate delegate to the American Medical Association House of Delegates, a past gubernatorial appointee to the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange board of directors, and a former member of the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners. He was the founding chair of the Children’s Medical Advocacy Coalition and president-elect of Las Vegas HEALS (Health, Education, Advocacy, and Leadership of southern Nevada), a medical industry coalition. In addition to his medical and health policy pursuits, Kline has a strong interest in history and international relations, having served as an officer of the World Affairs Council of Las Vegas from 2008-2013.
Kline has broad experience directing clinical programs in multiple states and in university, hospital-based, and private practice settings. He is the author of 28 scientific publications, and the editor of a textbook on pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
Kline received his MD and BA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and did his pediatric residency training at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. He completed a Biotechnology Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, publishing research on the immunotherapy of cancer, and a clinical fellowship in pediatric hematology-oncology and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).