Hello and welcome!

I use economic methods to evaluate how the organization of health care providers and payment policies influence spending, quality, and treatment choices. I also conduct interview-based qualitative research to provide context to quantitative work.

My work is funded by a K01 career development award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

My research:

• Weighs the pros and cons of healthcare consolidation

• Measures the cost and quality effects of different payment policies

• Evaluates how hospital and physician behaviors affect clinical care 

I aim for policy relevance. My work has been used:

• to inform the U.S. House of Representatives about the budgetary effects of health care consolidation, the costs driving health care spending, and solutions to increase transparency and competition in health care

• in the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's reports to Congress about increases in hospital-physician integration and about payment differentials across hospital-owned v. physician-owned sites

• by leaders at the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission seeking to understand the role of hospital-physician integration in diagnostic upcoding and patterns in orthopedic care

Affiliations and Collaborators

I am a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health and Health Sciences at Northeastern University. I also have a courtesy appointment with Northeastern's business school.

I conduct much of my research at the Northeastern Center for Health Policy and Healthcare Research. I have many active projects with Center Director and Professor Gary Young, who is also my primary mentor on my K01 award.

I also collaborate with other faculty at Northeastern, including the talented Professors Victoria Zhang (business school), Nasim Ferdows (now at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and Aleksandra Jakubowski (health sciences).  You can see more of their work at their webpages.

Education

My PhD is in Health Services Organization and Policy from the University of Michigan (health economics cognate).