Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (OMHA)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Nancy Griswold
Chief Administrative Law Judge for the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (OMHA)
E-mail: Medicare.Appeals@hhs.gov
Phone: (703) 235-0635
Judge Nancy Griswold was appointed Chief Administrative Law Judge for the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals on March 1, 2010. In this capacity, she oversees the third level review for Medicare appeals within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and has responsibility for the second largest Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) corps in the federal system. Chief Judge Griswold brings with her a wealth of administrative and managerial experience beginning over two decades ago.
Chief Judge Griswold graduated from Baylor University Law School then entered private practice as a labor lawyer in Dallas, Texas. She then moved to Shreveport, Louisiana where her general civil practice centered on personal injury, products liability and aircraft accident trial litigation. In 1990, she left private practice to assist in the development of the Louisiana’s worker’s compensation administrative court system. Judge Griswold became the first Chief Judge of the Louisiana Workers Compensation Court, a post she held for three years. During her tenure, Judge Griswold established and staffed the Office of the Chief Judge and created a Workers’ Compensation Mediation Program for the State of Louisiana.
Since her appointment as a federal Administrative Law Judge in 1995, Chief Judge Griswold has held progressively more responsible positions within the federal government. She began her federal career as an Administrative Law Judge in the Shreveport, Louisiana, Social Security Office of Hearings and Appeals in June of 1995. At the time of her appointment she was one of the youngest judges ever appointed as a Federal Administrative Law Judge. In January, 2002, she became the Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge in Shreveport, Louisiana, where she continued to serve until her appointment as acting and then permanent Regional Chief Judge for the Boston Region in July of 2004. As Regional Chief Administrative Law Judge in Boston, Judge Griswold was the national lead for implementation of the Commissioner’s Disability Service Improvement initiative at the hearings level. In this capacity, she oversaw the formulation of training, development of requirements for computer enhancements, and formulation of procedural rules and templates for the hearing operation. She also worked on the Medicare transition team, which developed recommendations for the smooth transition of the Medicare workload to the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals in July, 2005. Judge Griswold continued to serve in Boston until her appointment as Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge for the Social Security Administration in December, 2006.
In her capacity as Deputy Chief, Judge Griswold served as alter ego for the Chief Administrative Law Judge and worked closely with him on the formulation of Social Security’s extremely successful backlog elimination plan. During her tenure as Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge, the Social Security Administration reached new levels of productivity and prior to her departure had driven the backlog down for 14 successive months. She also had oversight of the Administrative Law Judge hiring program at Social Security and recommended over 300 Administrative Law Judges for appointment during her tenure. In her capacity as Deputy Chief, Judge Griswold served as subject matter expert during the design and implementation of five new state of the art video conferencing offices called the National Hearing Centers for Social Security’s Office of Disability Adjudication and Review—based in large part upon the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals adjudication model for video teleconferencing hearing procedures. As Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge for Social Security, she assisted the Chief Judge in the management of over 8000 employees, including 1200 Administrative Law Judges and 142 hearing offices.
Chief Judge Griswold is a member of the Texas, Louisiana and Colorado State Bar Associations.