Publications

November 2013 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Obamacare

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Katrina Flanagan

One vote in June, 2012, decided the fate of President Barack Obama's crowning first-term achievement: universal health insurance. Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court cast the deciding vote to uphold the keystone of the reform: the mandate to purchase... View Details

Keywords: Universal Health Insurance; Adverse Selection; Leviathan; Courts and Trials; Judgments; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Government and Politics; Health Industry; Health Industry; Health Industry; United States

25 Jun 2020
News

Perspectives in Health: Oscar Health - Examining the Role of Insurers During and After the Pandemic

Keywords: Insurance Carriers and Related Activities; Finance

Article

The CMS New Rule on Ambulatory Surgical Centers Earns Only Partial Credit

By: Junaid Nabi and Robert S. Kaplan

The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that it will be removing more... View Details

Keywords: Ambulatory Care; Payment Policy; Health Care and Treatment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

March 2014 (Revised September 2014)
Supplement

Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (B)

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Natalie Kindred

This case, a follow-up to Cancer Treatment Centers of America (A), HBS No. 313-012, begins with the debate over New Hampshire's certificate-of-need (CON) law, which restricts hospital expansion. This debate ignited significant public criticism of Cancer Treatment... View Details

Keywords: Cancer; Cancer Treatment; Accountability; Outcomes; Outcomes Reporting; Outcomes Measurement; Survival; For-profit Hospitals; Health Care; Healthcare; Hospital; Certificate Of Need; Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Corporate Accountability; Policy; Health Industry; United States

October 2002
Book Review

Book Review of Beatrix Hoffman's The Wages of Sickness: The Politics of Health Insurance in Progressive America

By: David A. Moss

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Health Industry; United States

Article

TDABC Cost Analysis of Ocular Disorders in an Ophthalmology Emergency Department versus Urgent Care: Clinical Experience at Massachusetts Eye and Ear

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Jonathan Chou, Mahek Shah, Amy Watts, Matthew Gardiner, Joan Miller and John I. Lowenstein

Purpose To perform a cost analysis comparison for managing common ocular disorders in an eye emergency department (ED) versus an urgent care setting using a time-driven activity-based cost model (TDABC) to assist physicians and staff in appropriate allocation of... View Details

Keywords: Time-driven Activity-based Cost Model; Emergency Room; Urgent Care Clinic; Cost; Analysis; Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment

March 5, 2022
Article

Hospital Capacity Shortages: An SEC-Backed Transparency “PULL” Will Open Beds Faster Than a “PUSH” by HHS

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

In the new normal of ongoing pandemics, hospital bed shortages will continue. Healthcare innovation expert and author of the upcoming book Innovating in Healthcare: Creating Breakthrough Services, Products, and Business Models (Wiley, 2023, 978-1119543008), HBS... View Details

Keywords: Hospital Capacity; Access To Care; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Capacity; Planning

March 2019
Article

Evidence of Upcoding in Pay-for-Performance Programs

By: Hamsa Bastani, Joel Goh and Mohsen Bayati

Recent Medicare legislation seeks to improve patient care quality by financially penalizing providers for hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). However, Medicare cannot directly monitor HAI rates and instead relies on providers accurately self-reporting HAIs in claims... View Details

Keywords: Medical Coding; Health Policy; Healthcare-acquired Conditions; Medicare; Health Care and Treatment; Policy; Performance Improvement; Quality; Measurement and Metrics; Government Legislation

SSRN

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

Keywords: Readmission Rates; Hospitals; Acute Care Hospitals; Medicare; Myocardial Infarction; Heart Failure; Health Care and Treatment

August 2020
Case

Sangu Delle

By: Leslie Perlow and Matthew Preble

By 2020, Sangu Delle (MBA 2016) has already made significant progress towards his life-long goal of solving Africa’s myriad and diverse challenges. At 33 years old, he is the founder and chairman of the for-profit Golden Palm Investments Corporation, CEO of Africa... View Details

Keywords: Impact; Impact Investing; Mental Health; Social Capitalism; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Health Care and Treatment; Personal Development and Career; Health Industry; Africa

September 2020
Article

Regulatory Sandboxes: A Cure for mHealth Pilotitis?

By: Abhishek Bhatia, Rahul Matthan, Tarun Khanna and Satchit Balsari

Mobile health (mHealth) and related digital health interventions in the past decade have not always scaled globally as anticipated earlier despite large investments by governments and philanthropic foundations. The implementation of digital health tools has suffered... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; mHealth; Digital Health; Design Thinking; Regulation; Intervention; Regulatory Sandbox; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Design; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; India

August 2018 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

By: Jill Avery and Ayelet Israeli

As its Series A extension round approaches, the founders of Hubble, a subscription-based, social-media fueled, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand of contact lenses, are reflecting on the marketing strategies that have taken them to a valuation of $200 million and debating... View Details

18 Apr 2024
Lecture

Innovation Opportunities Created by COVID-19 Can Help: And How to Make Them Happen

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

The crush of patients created by COVID enabled the creation of sites for care outside the traditional hospital, such as retail pharmacies, ambulatory surgery centers, urgent care centers, telemedicine, and wireless sensors. Public policy mirrored these changes by... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Health Industry; Health Industry

January 1994 (Revised March 1995)
Case

NovaCare, Inc.: Living the Vision

By: Lynn S. Paine

NovaCare's CEO is considering how further to institutionalize the company's espoused values and beliefs. One challenge is integrating two newly acquired businesses; another is better aligning the values of the company's managers with those of its front-line... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Health Care and Treatment; Labor and Management Relations; Management Teams; Values and Beliefs; Mergers and Acquisitions; Mission and Purpose; Health Industry

Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. She was the first woman to be tenured and chaired at Harvard Business School and serve on many established and start-up corporate health care/medical... View Details

Keywords: health care; health care; health care; health care; health care

January 2018 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Wenzhou Kangning Hospital: Changing Mental Healthcare in China

By: William C. Kirby, Wei Zhang, Yuanzhuo Wang and Nancy Hua Dai

The city of Wenzhou in the Province of Zhejiang, long known in China for entrepreneurship, now hosts the country’s largest privately owned mental health hospital group. This case traces the development of Wenzhou Kangning Hospital Co, Ltd. from founding to just before... View Details

Keywords: Mental Health; Hospital; IPO; China; Zhejiang; Wenzhou; Private Healthcare; Private Hospital; Health Care and Treatment; Private Ownership; Corporate Governance; Growth and Development; Entrepreneurship; Health Industry; China