Washington, DC — January 17, 2019 — NIHCM Foundation has awarded over $400,000 in grants to support seven investigator-initiated research studies. "Our grants demonstrate NIHCM's ongoing commitment to high-quality research that informs decision makers and ultimately improves health care for all Americans," said NIHCM CEO Nancy Chockley. The following studies were selected:
- Pricing the Value of a Cure
Drugs that offer new cures tend to come with high price tags. This study will evaluate different approaches to determining fair, value-based prices for these innovative drugs, apply them to a real-world case study of an emerging potential cure, and incorporate them into ICER’s value assessment framework.
| Researchers: | Steven D. Pearson, Institute for Clinical and Economic Review |
| Richard Chapman, Institute for Clinical and Economic Review |
- Impact of Medicaid Expansions on Prenatal Care & Birth Outcomes
By covering all low-income women regardless of pregnancy status, the ACA Medicaid expansions may lead to better care prior to conception through birth and postpartum care. This study will compare changes in outcomes for mothers in states that expanded Medicaid versus states that did not.
| Researchers: | Tiffany Green, Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Peter Cunningham, Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Bassam Dahman, Virginia Commonwealth University |
- Overinvestment in Technology: The Curious Case of MRI Scanners
Unchecked adoption of new technology is a leading driver of growth in U.S. health care spending. This study will estimate a structural model of MRI market entry, pricing and market share to simulate the impact of policies that could limit overinvestment in MRIs and other technology.
| Researchers: | Zack Cooper, Yale University |
| Fiona M. Scott Morton, Yale University |
| Steven Berry, Yale University |
- Impact of Hospital Consolidation on Access, Quality and Disparities
Hospitals are typically able to negotiate higher prices from private insurers after a merger. Do they use this extra revenue to expand care for Medicaid patients or do they shift care to higher-profit, privately insured patients? This study will investigate the impact of hospital mergers in New York on access and quality for Medicaid patients and disparities relative to privately insured patients.
| Researchers: | Sunita Desai, New York University |
| Sherry Glied, New York University |
- Effects of Tiered Physician Networks on Use & Provider Behavior
This study will quantify the system-wide effects of tiered physician networks on referrals, hospital choice, and health care use and spending, and assess how impact varies based on the design features of the tiered networks, urban or rural market location, and competitiveness of the local physician market.
| Researchers: | Anna Sinaiko, Harvard University |
| Elena Prager, Northwestern University |
- Persuasion in Physician-Industry Relations: Medical Devices
Do payments from medical device manufacturers affect doctors’ decisions about device use and choice of device? This study seeks to find out by estimating the causal impacts of industry payments on the use of promoted devices, negotiated prices and patient outcomes.
| Researchers: | Ashley Swanson, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania |
| Matthew Grennan, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania |
- High & Low Residual Spenders in Private Health Insurance Markets
This three-country study will explore the potential to improve health plan payment accuracy by taking a closer look at patients for whom actual spending is much higher or much lower than the plan’s risk-adjusted payment. Investigators will describe patient characteristics affecting spending for these high and low residual spenders and model the impact of strategies to improve the payment system.
| Researchers: | Tom McGuire, Harvard University |
| Richard C. van Kleef, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands |
| Sonja Schillo, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany |
