Introduction: Until recently, adjuvant treatment options for higher stage resectable cutaneous melanoma were limited. Two studies with a similar set-up, published 2017, led to registration of targeted therapy for BRAF-mutated melanoma with dabrafenib and trametinib as well as of the...

Dieser Bericht untersucht die Folgen der COVID-19-Pandemie auf das Leistungsgeschehen der Krankenhäuser in Deutschland. Er untersucht außerdem, ob die im Jahr 2021 geleisteten Ausgleichszahlungen die Erlösminderungen der Krankenhäuser aufgrund des Rückgangs der Leistungsmenge ausgleichen...

While the savings of retired singles tend to fall with age, those of retired couples tend to rise. We estimate a rich model of retired singles and couples with bequest motives and uncertain longevity and medical expenses. Our estimates imply that while medical expenses are an important driver of...

Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder (OUD) consists of administering methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone in conjunction with behavioral therapy. Despite strong support in the medical and public health communities for MAT, fewer than 10 percent of US patients with...

This paper analyzes the referral processes between a gatekeeping primary-care physician (PCP) and a specialist. Specialists provide superior treatment for some patients but are more costly than PCPs. Agency problems arise because diagnostic signals are private information of the physicians....

We examine Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on substance use disorder (SUD) treatment utilization and financing. We couple administrative data on admissions to specialty SUD treatment and prescriptions for medications used to treat SUDs with a differences-in-differences...

Since the early 2000s Rhode Island has been among the states hardest hit by the opioid crisis. In response, the state has made it a priority to expand access to medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder (OUD), which refers to the use of the FDA-approved medications methadone,...

In this paper, we use individual level data on purchases of one of the most prescribed categories of drugs (cholesterol-lowering statins) to study the responses of physicians and patients to variation in the cost of drugs. In a sample of first-time statin prescriptions to employees from a group...

This paper investigates the career effects of mental health, focusing on depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder (BD). Individual-level registry data from Denmark show that these disorders carry large earnings penalties, ranging from 34 percent for depression and 38 percent for BD to 74...

We provide the first evidence on the effects of expansions to private and public insurance programs on children’s use of specialty substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. We combine administrative government data over the period 1996 to 2017 with quasi-experimental differences-in-differences...

We study the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on chronic disease drug adherence. Focusing on asthma, we use a database that tracks the vast majority of prescription drug claims in the U.S. from 2018 to 2020. Using a difference-in-differences empirical specification, we compare monthly drug...

"Capitalizing a Cure takes us into the struggle over accessing a medical breakthrough to investigate the power of finance over business, biomedicine, and public health. When sofosbuvir-based medicines launched in 2013, they promised a cure for millions of patients worldwide with hepatitis C. But...

US healthcare is undergoing a period of substantial change, with many hospitals vertically integrating with physician practices. Such integration could improve quality by promoting care coordination, but could also worsen it by impacting care delivery. Evidence on how physicians alter their...

As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, researchers are reporting findings of randomized trials comparing standard care with care augmented by experimental drugs. The trials have small sample sizes, so estimates of treatment effects are imprecise. Seeing imprecision, clinicians reading research...

COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) therapy is currently a leading treatment for COVID-19. At present, there is a shortage of CCP relative to demand. We develop and analyze a model of centralized CCP allocation that incorporates both donation and distribution. In order to increase CCP supply, we...

COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) therapy is currently a leading treatment for COVID-19. At present, there is a shortage of CCP relative to demand. We develop and analyze a model of centralized CCP allocation that incorporates both donation and distribution. In order to increase CCP supply, we...

COVID-19 has created a dual set of stresses on health care systems worldwide: a rise in expensive intensive care services and a dramatic decline in elective services. The U.S. government has responded with both grant and loan programs to help health care providers weather the storm. But the...

As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, researchers are reporting findings of randomized trials comparing standard care with care augmented by experimental drugs. The trials have small sample sizes, so estimates of treatment effects are imprecise. Seeing imprecision, clinicians reading research...

We analyze whether receiving care from higher-priced hospitals leads to lower mortality. We overcome selection issues by using an instrumental variable approach which exploits that ambulance companies are quasi-randomly assigned to transport patients and have strong preferences for certain...

Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Basic Tools in Medical Decision Making -- Chapter 3. Basic Tools in Economics: Preferences, Expected Utility, Risk Aversion and Prudence -- Chapter 4. Treatment Decisions -- Chapter 5. Test and Treatment Decisions -- Chapter 6. Prudence and Medical Decision...

"This ground-breaking book expertly brings together the many effective dementia interventions to reduce the symptoms of this debilitating condition and also, for the first time, a cost-benefit analysis of those interventions to establish whether the benefits outweigh the costs. Focussing on new...