Background: Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have strong incentives to reduce potentially wasteful healthcare, including costly acute care visits for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions (ACSC) [1-4]. It is unknown, however, whether MA plans lower acute care use relative to Traditional Medicare (TM) or instead shift patients from hospitalizations towards observation stays and emergency department (ED) direct discharges. [...]

Background: Medicare observation stays are increasing nationally. Beneficiaries frequently hospitalized under observation, as well as those needing post-acute care skilled nursing facility coverage, may face increased financial burdens from these services. Patients living in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods have increased risk of inpatient 30-day re-admissions. It is not known whether neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage increases 30-day [...]

Background: Eviction represents a traumatic form of housing instability and is an important social determinant of health. Growing wealth inequality and a housing crisis have resulted in high rates of eviction since 2000, with women renters and those of Black race disproportionately affected. Prior studies demonstrate the negative impact of eviction on self-reported mental and [...]

Background: While improving the American healthcare system has been a top focus of the domestic policy agenda for decades, health reform debates since early 2020 have taken place against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has highlighted key challenges in public health infrastructure and healthcare access. U.S. physicians are at the forefront of this [...]

Background: Prescription opioids have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years due to the rise in use and misuse which has resulted in significant morbidity and mortality. There have been several efforts by government agencies to address this such as the FDA issuing a Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for extended release/long acting (ERLAs) opioids [...]

Background: The majority of medical students indicate that the health policy and health systems education they receive is insufficient, even though they will face barriers to practicing care at the systems level. In addition, there is little uniformity or evaluation of pedagogical approaches to health policy in undergraduate medical education, especially in connecting health policy [...]

Background: Growth of physician owned hospitals (POH) in the United States has been restricted since the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Federal policy makers wanted to restrict POH, due to concerns that POH may cherry pick healthier patients, treat fewer Medicaid patients, and have higher service utilization. Data has shown an unclear [...]