A new NBER working paper reveals that doctors practicing alone write more inappropriate opioid prescriptions than doctors working in groups.
Research Corner
Posted inCost of Care
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.
Posted inInsurance
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.
Posted inPublic Health
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.
Posted inPublic Health
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.
Posted inHealth Technology
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.
Posted inCost of Care
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.
Posted inHealth Equity
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.
Posted inCost of Care
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.
Posted inHealth Technology
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.