Publications

We study the effects of changing Medicaid reimbursement rates for primary care services on behavioral health outcomes—defined here as mental illness and substance use disorders.

In August 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration issued the final rule to establish a new category of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. Over-the-counter hearing aids are intended for use by adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss without the need for an audiologist to adjust and program the device for the user’s level of hearing as is currently done for most conventional hearing aids. One key aspect of the effectiveness of these future OTC hearing aids is provision of the correct level of sound amplification based on the individual’s level of hearing. Thus, a feature to import prior hearing test (audiogram) results into these devices may be an important consideration to ensure optimal amplification of sound.

Despite growth in private equity (PE) acquisitions of physician practices in the US, little is known about how changes in ownership influence workforce composition. Using clinician-level data linked to practice acquisition information, we estimated changes in clinician workforce composition in PE-acquired practice sites relative to non-PE-acquired independent practice sites for dermatology, ophthalmology, and gastroenterology specialties.

Millions of older adults co-manage or delegate health responsibilities to one or more family caregivers. Patient portals facilitate health care management tasks, but little is known about portal use arrangements (i.e., individual or joint use) among older adults and their caregivers.

The emergence and increasing use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in healthcare practice and delivery is being greeted with both optimism and caution. We focus on the nexus of AI/ML and racial disparities in healthcare: an issue that must be addressed if the promise of AI to improve patient care and health outcomes is to be realized in an equitable manner for all populations.

There is much debate about the effects of pharmaceutical direct to consumer advertising (DTCA) on health care use. In this paper, we inform this debate by examining the effects of DTCA on office visits, as well as treatment courses resulting from those visits, for five common chronic conditions (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, depression, and osteoporosis). In particular, we examine whether office visits result in use of drug therapy and/or continued office visits over time.

The United States faces an ongoing drug crisis, worsened by the undertreatment of substance use disorders (SUDs). Family enrollment in high deductible health plans (HDHPs) and the resulting increased cost exposure could exacerbate the undertreatment of SUD. This study characterized the distribution of health care spending within families where a member has a SUD and estimated the association between HDHPs and family health care spending.

Care partners have an active role during medical visits of older adults with hearing loss (HL) and dementia. Efforts to support care partner engagement and teach advocacy skills may close gaps in care quality for the subgroup of older adults who are living with HL and dementia.

While providers are aware of the financial burden of healthcare for patients, there is a lack of actionable price transparency at the point of prescribing. Real-time prescription benefit (RTPB) tools are new electronic clinical decision support tools that retrieve patient- and medication-specific out-of-pocket cost information and display it to clinicians at the point of prescribing.

Significant racial disparities were observed in discussions, prescribing, and use of diabetes technology.