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Medicare Is Reducing the Cost of Knee Replacements (Here's How That Could Backfire)
ByadminKnee replacements are booming. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of knee replacement procedures in the United States doubled, to more than one million. Experts think the figure might rise sixfold more in the next couple decades, because of our aging population. Since many people receiving knee replacements are elderly, Medicare picks up most of…
More Coverage of Our Research on Out-Of-Pocket Cost Conversations
ByadminHere is a nice summary of our research, published by an excellent reporter at The American Journal of Managed Care: A new qualitative study of clinical meetings between physicians and patients pointed out certain behavioral concerns that stand in the way of helping patients navigate out-of-pocket spending. The study, published in Health Affairs and led…
American Physicians Lack Diversity— Here’s One Way to Change That
ByadminAfrican Americans make up 13% of the country’s population, but only 4% of American physicians are black. This lack of racial diversity in the profession is tragic, denying this prestigious career to many worthy people and undermining the health of many African Americans, who are more likely to receive important medical services when they’re cared for by black…
Look Dad – I'm an Economist!
ByadminI recently spoke with a reporter about a new effort, by Medicare, to persuade dialysis centers to care for a wider range of primary care health needs for people with kidney failure. I’ll give you a teaser for that article below, but first want to point out what struck me as the most notable part…
Party First, Ideology Later
ByadminWe think of political parties as being ideological homes. If you embrace conservative ideas, you gravitate to the Republican party, and so on. But probably just as often, people have party homes (“My dad was a Dem, and so am I”), in which whatever the party embraces magically fits their ideology. Consider the following picture…
Thoughts on Shared Decision Making
ByadminI recently gave a talk about shared decision making at the annual conference for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Here is a nice write-up of that talk. For those of you silly enough not to travel to Florida to hear me pontificate! After listening to the treatment alternatives—surveillance, or active treatment with surgery and radiation—a…

