Research Corner

How a Doctor’s Peers Shape Prescribing Habits

A new NBER working paper reveals that doctors practicing alone write more inappropriate opioid prescriptions than doctors working in groups.

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Promising Primary Care Program Cuts Unnecessary ER Visits

A randomized study finds that easing undocumented immigrants’ access to primary care cuts their use of the emergency room.

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Could Medicaid Coverage Losses Dampen Voter Turnout?

Guest author Gabriella Aboulafia shares a study from Tennessee that could foreshadow how recent Medicaid coverage losses might affect upcoming elections.

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Experts Pick the Year’s Scariest Health Policy Studies

In a special Halloween edition of Research Corner, Tradeoffs Advisory Board members share some of the scariest health policy studies they’ve read this year.

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A Quarter of Clinic Visits are No Longer with Doctors

A new study in The BMJ reveals that nurse practitioners and physician assistants now handle 25% of Medicare visits. The way those visits are billed makes it hard to know how that shift away from doctors is impacting care.

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How a Cancer-Screening Blood Test Could Backfire

A new JAMA Internal Medicine article reviews the evidence for a widely hyped cancer-screening blood test — and finds it lacking.

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Could Health Insurance Bureaucracy Be a Good Thing?

A recent working paper adds fuel to the debate over when and how health insurers should be able to ration people’s use of care.

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South Carolina’s Bold Maternal Health Experiment Disappoints

A large randomized trial showed home visits from nurses for pregnant people did not improve their or their babies’ health outcomes.

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How Patents Help Keep Obesity Drug Prices Sky-High

A recent JAMA study sheds light on how the manufacturers of a class of popular weight-loss drugs have avoided competition from more affordable generics.

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How Smartwatches Could Lead Doctors to Overtreat Patients

A new study suggests doctors struggle to know when and how to act on heart rhythm data generated by patients’ smartwatches.

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