Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
What happens when you have missing data? Many people recommend using multiple imputation (see Briggs et al. 2003; Faria et al. 2014; Gomes et al. 2013; Hunter et al., 2015; Hughes et al., 2016). This approach, however, generally assumes that data are missing at random. Missing at random could be interpreted as the probability that health…
The U.S. has a decentralized health care system. This means that depending on your health plan, you may have more or less generous coverage. But how does coverage vary across plans? A recent paper by Chambers et al. (2018) looks specifically at coverage of specialty drugs. Using the Tufts Medical Center’s Specialty Drug Evidence and Coverage…
Medicare’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) aims to link physician quality of care to their reimbursement. At first glance, paying more to high quality physicians seems like a great idea. However, a paper by Liao et al. (2018) surveys physicians from a large national sample maintained by the American College of Physicians (ACP). They find…
Peggy Salvatore has posted Health Wonk Review July 2018: Summer’s Coming Around Again at Health System Ed Blog. Check it out. Plus, here are some links of my own to add as we head into the weekend: Is this what government drug price negotiation looks like under Trump? Do health insurance subsidies improve health? Breast is best? How does…
Conventional wisdom holds that in recent years the answer is ‘yes’, however what does the data show? A paper by Nipay, Richards and Penso (2018) uses an SK&A survey of physician office practices between 2007 and 2017 to find the answer. In short, conventional wisdom is largely true with the caveat that there is significant…
Value is a matter of perspective, and no patient is average. As stakeholders across healthcare struggle with and refine the process of determining value, differing perspectives will trigger fierce debate, with some arguing that cost-effectiveness analysis should never have a place in a value-based health system. But it would be a mistake to completely disregard…
How can India hope to afford expanding health care coverage to half a billion people? The answer is that access to care may be restricted. As The Wire reports: India is embarking on covering 500 million people with state-sponsored health insurance. At this massive scale, the potential for huge distortions is real. The question is…
You may think you know single payer systems, but do you really? Last week, the NHS celebrated 70 years of existence. The Guardian has an interactive article that you can use to guess how health care in England has changed over the past 70 years. I encourage you to read the article and test your…
Elasticity of health insurance with respect to premiums. Why are Americans having fewer babies? EHRs increase cost by $44k/physician. Hospitals and information blocking. “After instrumenting for admissions to owner‐managed NHs [nusring homes], quality among long‐stay residents at owner‐managed NHs is generally better than NHs with salaried managers”
What is the difference in health care cost when two different treatments are used? This question is challenging because cumulative health care cost is often censored either by death or lack of continuous enrollment. Lin (2000) addressed this issue in his 2000 paper (see paper and my blog write-up). The problem with this approach, however,…