Research
My research applies frameworks from health economics, public finance, industrial organization, and health services research to understand why healthcare markets often fail patients, and what policies can do about it. Three main threads run through my work: methods that measure real-world access where claims data fall short; evaluation of how providers and systems respond to regulatory, payment, and coverage changes; and analyses of market structure and provider behavior, including how facility entry, exit, and ownership relate to access at scale.
Lines of work
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Measuring real-world access barriers
Audit and survey methods that capture what patients experience when seeking care.
Administrative claims data describe who gets care but not who is turned away. Using secret-shopper audit designs and national facility surveys, I measure the supply side directly: which providers accept which patients, at what wait times, at what cost, and with what evidence-based options on offer. The methods began with addiction treatment access and now extend to primary care.
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Policy levers and delivery-system response
Evaluating provider and system response to regulatory, payment, and coverage changes.
Whether a coverage rule, regulatory waiver, or payment policy reshapes the delivery system depends on how providers respond. This thread examines provider and system response across changes including Medicaid Section 1115 SUD IMD waivers, Medicare's coverage of opioid treatment programs, COVID-era telehealth flexibilities for opioid use disorder, prior-authorization requirements, and crisis intervention teams — using physician surveys, descriptive evaluation, quasi-experimental designs, and policy commentary across the individual papers.
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Market structure and provider behavior
How ownership, consolidation, and facility entry and exit relate to access and treatment delivery.
Industrial-organization frameworks ask how market structure (ownership, consolidation, entry and exit) relates to provider behavior and to the experience of patients. Recent work examines private-equity acquisition of substance use disorder treatment facilities, the relationship between health-system consolidation and Medicare access, and how facility opening and closure mediate the effect of payment reforms.