CMS Leadership

James Randolph Farris, M.D. graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C.  He completed internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at Martin Luther King General Hospital in Los Angeles, California and served as Chief Medical Resident.

Following completion of residency training, Dr. Farris returned to Texas in 1980 and joined the staff of the Dallas County Health Department.  Over the course of 15 years with the Health Department, he served as Clinic Director, Medical Director for Ambulatory Care and, eventually, as Health Department Director. He has lectured extensively and published numerous articles on public health topics.  In 1991, Health and Human Services Secretary, Dr. Louis Sullivan, recognized him for his part in developing a model childhood immunization program for Dallas County during the Federally sponsored Infant Immunization Initiative.  The model program was emulated by several American cities.

Dr. Farris also devoted several years to the private practice of Internal Medicine in Dallas and held the positions of Assistant Attending Physician in Internal Medicine at St. Paul Medical Center and Clinical Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

In 1996, Dr. Farris began his Federal career by serving as Regional Health Administrator for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  In that capacity, he had responsibility for oversight of Federal public health programs in Region VI states of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana.  He has served as Regional Administrator of the Dallas office of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) since April of 1998. 

From 2000 until 2007, Dr. Farris served as the lead CMS Regional Administrator for rural health issues. During that same period of time, he also led the national CMS effort to increase influenza and pneumococcal immunization rates among Medicare beneficiaries and served on the Secretary’s National Vaccine Advisory Committee.

In 2007, Dr. Farris was named CMS Consortium Administrator for Quality Improvement and Survey and Certification Operations.  In that capacity, he works with all of the CMS Regional Office components that oversee Quality Improvement Organizations and Survey and Certification operations throughout the Nation.

Dr. Farris was the recipient of the Presidential Rank Award at the Meritorious level in 2002 and received the Roger W. Jones Award for Executive Leadership from American University in 2003.