NIHCM Foundation Awards $270K in Investigator-Initiated Research Grants

Washington, DC – November 11, 2014 - The National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation has awarded four new grants totaling approximately $270,000 to support investigator-initiated health services research.

The winning studies were selected based on their potential to inform and impact future policymaking, strength of design and efficiency of budget.

• Physician Practice Styles and Overuse of Healthcare Services
  This study will explore physician practice patterns for cancer services that tend to be overused in order to understand whether overuse is pervasive across the medical decisions of individual physicians or more limited to specific services.

• Do Higher Priced Providers Deliver Higher Quality Care? An Analysis of the Price/Quality Relationship Using HCCI Data
  This study will analyze the relationship between various measures of provider quality and the prices received from private payers, building on prior research that shows no direct association between quality and prices in Medicare.

• How Are Physician Referral Networks Affected by Physician Practice Ownership and Limited Coverage Network Insurance Products?
  This study will investigate how referral patterns are influenced both by the ownership structures of physician groups and hospitals and by limited-network insurance plans.

• Physician Practice Organization and Health Care Delivery and Costs
  This study will examine how physician practice consolidation into multi-specialty groups affects care delivery, spending and quality for Medicare patients as well as PPO prices for the privately insured.

About NIHCM

The National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the health of Americans by spurring workable and creative solutions to pressing health care problems.