Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
What is a rare disease? The definition varies across countries, but according to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) rare diseases are those with a prevalence of <5 cases per 10,000 people; ultra-rare diseases are those with <1 case per 50,000 people. In most cases, rare disease must not only be rare but also severe, often…
That is the finding from a recent Health Affairs article by Desai et al. (2021). We launched a large online advertising campaign to increase consumers’ awareness about insurer-specific negotiated price information available on New Hampshire’s public price transparency website. Our campaign led to a more than 600 percent increase in visits to the website. However, in…
Standard cost-effectiveness analysis assumes that any gain in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) should be valued equally. This does not sound unreasonable, but is it true in practice? Consider two potential violations of constant value of QALY gains: scope insensitivity and severity independence. I define each of these below: Scope insensitivity. This assumes that individuals value…
Health insurance coverage for sexual minorities. PhD = doctor? Ghost rides. Mini-COBRA. Pasaporte corona en Dinamarca.
Let’s say you need a surgery. Let’s say that it’s a serious surgery. There are a number of choices that you (or your doctor) may make. The surgery could be done in a hospital where you are admitted as an inpatient. On the other hand, you could get the procedure at a hospital, but perhaps…
I provide the answer to this question in a recent paper in Current Medical Research & Opinion with co-authors Howard Thom, Edna Keeney, Daisy Gaunt, Lauren Zhao, Menaka Bhor, Avery Rizio, Lanetta Bronté-Hall and Nirmish Shah. The abstract is below. AimSickle cell disease (SCD) is a lifelong blood disorder affecting approximately 100,000 individuals in the…
A recent JAMA paper by Yadav and Lewis (2021) provide the answer: Bias from immortal time periods is the error in estimating the association between the exposure and the outcome that results from misclassification or exclusion of time intervals Yadav and Lewis (2021) Sounds simple but how do these errors occur in practice? Here are…
COVID-19 vaccine monitor. Impact of immunotherapies on Medicare cancer cost. Amazon Care telehealth. What’s wrong with my model? Is Brazil’s health system collapsing?
The answer to this question likely will be shaped in part by a new multilateral working group that will include not only representatives from the U.S. (U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and Offices of State Attorneys General), but also Canada (Canadian Competition Bureau), Europe (the European Commission Directorate General for Competition) and the United…
To get people vaccinated for COVID-19, a lot of things have to go right. First, you have to have purchased the vaccine. Second, you need a supply chain to be able to deliver the vaccine. Third (or perhaps first) you need people who actually are interested in receiving the vaccine. As you can see from…