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Publications
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(119,424)
- Faculty Publications (58)
- May 21, 2020
- Editorial
Primary Care Is Hurting: Why Aren't Private Insurers Pitching In?
By: Leemore S. Dafny and J. Michael McWilliams
Primary care clinicians are the front line for patients with suspected infection. We rely on them to diagnose, triage, and manage patients with potential or confirmed COVID infections. They are also responsible for keeping non-COVID medical conditions under control... View Details
- April 15, 2020
- Other Article
Designating Certain Post-Acute Care Facilities As COVID-19 Skilled Care Centers Can Increase Hospital Capacity And Keep Nursing Home Patients Safer
By: Leemore S. Dafny and Steven S. Lee
As the number of COVID-19 cases nationwide continues to grow, many hospitals will need to convert acute care beds into intensive care beds and discharge stable patients to post-acute care settings such as nursing homes. In addition, nursing homes unable to care for... View Details
- 2020
- Chapter
Health Care Markets a Decade After the ACA: Bigger, but Probably Not Better
By: Leemore S. Dafny
Love it or hate it, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) embraced and extended the role of private markets in financing and delivering health care in the United States. Ten years after the ACA’s passage, it is unclear whether health care markets are better (along a range of... View Details
- January 2, 2020
- Article
Changes in Quality of Care After Hospital Mergers and Acquisitions
By: Nancy Dean Beaulieu, Leemore S. Dafny, B. E. Landon, Jesse Dalton, Ifedayo Kuye and J. Michael McWilliams
Background: The hospital industry has consolidated substantially during the past two decades and at an accelerated pace since 2010. Multiple studies have shown that hospital mergers have led to higher prices for commercially insured patients, but research about effects... View Details
- Summer 2019
- Article
The Price Effects of Cross-Market Mergers: Theory and Evidence from the Hospital Industry
By: Leemore S. Dafny, Katherine Ho and Robin S. Lee
We consider the effect of mergers between firms whose products are not viewed as direct substitutes for the same good or service but are bundled by a common intermediary. Focusing on hospital mergers across distinct geographic markets, we show that such combinations... View Details
- February 2019
- Article
Does It Matter If Your Health Insurer Is For Profit? Effects of Ownership on Premiums, Insurance Coverage, and Medical Spending
By: Leemore S. Dafny
There is limited empirical evidence about the impact of for-profit health insurers on various outcomes. I study the effects of conversions to for-profit status by Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) affiliates in 11 states, spanning 28 geographic markets. I find both the... View Details
- Article
Decreases In Readmissions Credited to Medicare's Program to Reduce Hospital Readmissions Have Been Overstated
By: Christopher Ody, Lucy Msall, Leemore S. Dafny, David Grabowski and David Cutler
Medicare’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) has been credited with lowering risk-adjusted readmission rates for targeted conditions at general acute care hospitals. However, these reductions appear to be illusory or overstated. This is because a... View Details
- October 2018 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
Beth Israel Deaconess: Consolidating to Strengthen, or to Stave Off, Competition?
By: Leemore Dafny
In July 2017, CEO Kevin Tabb of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center announced his plan to consolidate 11 Massachusetts hospitals under a common management structure. These hospitals collectively generated $5 billion in patient revenue and 25% of... View Details
- August 2018 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
Oscar Health Insurance: What Lies Ahead for a Unicorn Insurance Entrant?
By: Leemore Dafny and Victoria Marone
Keywords: Oscar Insurance; Fintech; US Health Care; Affordable Care Act (ACA); Health Insurance Marketplaces; Insurer Competition; Provider Consolidation; Market Entry; Health Care and Treatment; Entrepreneurship; Market Entry and Exit; Negotiation; Growth Management; Health Industry; Insurance Industry; New York (state, US); New Jersey
- Article
Narrow Networks on the Health Insurance Marketplaces: Prevalence, Pricing, and the Cost of Network Breadth
By: Leemore S. Dafny, Igal Hendel, Victoria Marone and Christopher Ody
Anecdotal reports and systematic research highlight the prevalence of narrow-network plans on the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance Marketplaces. At the same time, Marketplace premiums in the period 2014–2016 were much lower than projected by the Congressional... View Details
- May 11, 2017
- Article
Good Riddance to Big Insurance Mergers
By: Leemore S. Dafny
Federal judges issued preliminary injunctions halting mergers of four of the five largest U.S. health insurers. These decisions provide more precedent to support challenges of mergers between competitors in health care markets—whether payers or providers. View Details
- May 2017
- Article
When Discounts Raise Costs: The Effect of Copay Coupons on Generic Utilization
By: Leemore S. Dafny, Christopher Ody and Matt Schmitt
Branded pharmaceutical manufacturers frequently offer “copay coupons” that insulate consumers from cost sharing, thereby undermining insurers’ ability to influence drug utilization. We study the impact of copay coupons on branded drugs first facing generic entry... View Details
- December 2016
- Article
Health Care Needs Real Competition
By: Leemore S. Dafny and Thomas H. Lee
The U.S. health care system is inefficient, unreliable, and crushingly expensive. There is no shortage of proposed solutions, but central to the best of them is the idea that health care needs more competition. In other sectors, competition improves quality and... View Details
- Article
Undermining Value-Based Purchasing — Lessons from the Pharmaceutical Industry
By: Leemore S. Dafny, Christopher Ody and Matt Schmitt
The analogy between value-based purchasing in pharmaceuticals and the new frontier of alternative payment models for health care providers is relatively straightforward. Insurers are increasingly demanding steep discounts from providers in exchange for inclusion in... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
How Does Competition Impact Quality of Care? A Case Study of the U.S. Dialysis Industry
By: Leemore S. Dafny, David Cutler and Christopher Ody
- Article
More Insurers, Lower Premiums: Evidence from Initial Pricing in the Health Insurance Marketplaces
By: Leemore S. Dafny, Jonathan Gruber and Christopher Ody
- Article
Narrow Networks on the Health Insurance Exchanges: What Do They Look Like and How Do They Affect Pricing? A Case Study of Texas
By: Leemore S. Dafny, Igal Hendel and Nathan Wilson