Higher costs for complex cancer surgery may be an indicator for worse, rather than better, quality of care, according to new research by the Baker Institute and the University of Texas MDAnderson Cancer Center. The study suggests that lower patient costs achieved by high-volume surgeons can be explained by the lower occurrence of “processes of care”— many of which are taken to avoid or treat complications that can occur during surgery, such as placing arterial lines or providing epidural anesthesia.
Vivian Ho, Marah Short, Thomas AloiaApril 21, 2017
In this study, the authors examine the impact of consolidation among U.S. dialysis providers on: 1) the ability of patients to choose among competing dialysis providers and 2) the market concentration of providers in each hospital service area.
Texans are likely to pay more at freestanding emergency departments than at hospital-based emergency departments or urgent care centers, according to a study co-authored by Vivian Ho, the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics and director of the Center for Health and Biosciences.
The winner’s curse — overestimating the value of an asset and therefore overpaying — is often associated with acquisitions of publicly-traded firms but not with private acquisitions. Using an event study methodology for over 22,000 private acquisitions of U.S. firms between 1985 and 2015, the authors examine a possible winner’s curse for such acquisitions, testing variables to determine what characteristics make a private company more likely to overestimate the asset's value.
About 1 million Texans gained health care coverage due to the Affordable Care Act, according to new research by health policy fellows Vivian Ho and Elena Marks. The new findings published in the American Journal of Public Health examined the effects of the ACA’s Marketplace on Texas residents and determined which population subgroups benefited the most and the least.
Stephen Pickett, Elena M. Marks, Vivian HoDecember 7, 2016
Previous studies of tobacco policies aimed at reducing hospitalizations may have overestimated the benefits of bans on public smoking and underestimated the benefits of cigarette taxes, according to new research by the Baker Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, Yale University, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“Public-place smoking bans play a critical role in improving public health, and we are not arguing that smoking bans be lifted in restaurants, bars and workplaces,” said research co-author Vivian Ho, the chair in health economics at the Baker Institute and director of the institute’s Center for Health and Biosciences. “However, policy makers and public health workers must be realistic in understanding the benefits of alternative policy interventions like taxes and bans. We found that raising cigarette taxes can have an immediate beneficial effect in terms of reducing costly hospitalizations. As for smoking bans, while these may eventually lower hospitalizations, our research found no immediate benefit in terms of reduced hospitalizations.”
Insurers and physicians can partner to deliver care more efficiently and save costs, according to a study that examined Cigna’s Collaborative Accountable Care initiative’s partnership with the Medical Clinic of North Texas.
Little is known about regional variation in cancer treatment and its determinants. In this publication, authors compare rates of adherence to treatment guidelines for elderly patients across Texas and whether local specialist supply is an important determinant of treatment variation.
State-based Medicaid programs have begun using All Patient Refined–Diagnosis-Related Groups (APR-DRGs) to determine hospital reimbursement rates. This study examined how well APR-DRGs reflect admission costs for childhood cancer chemotherapy to inform clinicians, hospitals and policymakers in the wake of policy changes.