Recent Research in the Media
- Dr. Arnold takes on new role at Brown University, remains Affiliated Scholar at Petris
After years of working with our Petris team as the director of research, Dan Arnold has moved to
Brown University. We are thankful to Dan for all his many contributions to the Petris Center and are very pleased that he will continue to work with us as an affiliated scholar.Dr. Arnold’s research focuses on the impact of health care consolidation on prices, quality, and
wages. He has published in Health Affairs, JAMA Health Forum, and Health Services Research
and his work has been cited by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco
Chronicle.He has assessed the likely competitive effects of health care mergers for the California Attorney
General, the California Office of Health Care Affordability, and the Connecticut Office of Health
Strategy.Dr. Arnold received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara
and his B.A. from Cornell University. - Welcoming Dr. Deborah Ann Haas-Wilson as Distinguished Senior Scholar
We are pleased to announce that Deborah Ann Haas-Wilson who is the Marilyn Carlson Nelson Professor Emerita of Economics at Smith College and a leading expert on health care antitrust issues will be joining the Petris Center as a Distinguished Senior Scholar.
Professor Haas-Wilson served as the testifying expert for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in
the matter of Evanston Health Corp. (Docket No. 9315) and in the U.S. District Court for the plaintiffs in the matter of Saint Alphonsus Medical System v. St. Luke’s Health System (Case No. 1:12-cv-00560). She has served as an economic consultant on antitrust matters for the Massachusetts Attorney General, the California Attorney General, the California Department of Managed Care, and numerous private parties.
Professor Haas-Wilson’s current research focuses on competition and competition policies in
health care markets. Her articles have been published in the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Law and Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Health Economics and other peer-reviewed journals. She is the author of Managed Care and Monopoly Power: The Antitrust Challenge (Harvard University Press, 2003) and co-editor of Uncertain Times: Kenneth Arrow and the Changing Economics of Health Care (Duke University Press, 2003).She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and her B.A.
from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. - Richard Scheffler is Awarded the Emeriti Association’s “Emeriti of the Year” Award
On October 2nd, 2024, Richard Scheffler was awarded the Emeriti Association’s “Emeriti of the Year” Award, alongside Michael Buckland. Both recipients have made significant contributions to their fields after retirement and continue to have a major influence on academic and policy discussions in their fields.
Read more about the Emeritus of the Year event here.
- Richard Scheffler is Elected as a Life Fellow from the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Richard Scheffler is awarded a fellowship award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his distinguished contributions to the fields of health economics, competition in health care, and the development and implementation of domestic and global public health policy.
- Harris-Walz Ticket and Healthcare Consolidation
Becker’s Hospital Review article shares that Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, have a history of challenging major healthcare corporations. However, health policy experts are unclear about how forcefully they would pursue these efforts at the national level if elected. Richard Scheffler, PhD, as noted in the article, suggests that healthcare conglomerates using their market power to raise prices should be concerned under this administration.
Read the full Becker’s Hospital Review here.
Recent Publications
- New evidence on the impacts of cross-market hospital mergers on commercial prices and measures of quality
By Daniel R. Arnold, Jaime S. King, Brent D. Fulton, Alexandra D. Montague, Katherine L. Gudiksen, Thomas L. Greaney, Richard M. Scheffler| Published in Health Services Research in April 2024 | Link to full report.
“As hospital systems have expanded, they’ve extended into regions where they previously had no presence. A recent study found 55% of the 1500 hospitals targeted for a merger or acquisition from 2009 to 2019 operated in a commuting zone that the acquirer did not previously operate in. The price and quality effects of these “cross-market” hospital mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are the focus of this paper.”
What this study adds:
- Serial acquirers are significant contributors to estimated cross-market price effects.
- We find no discernible impact of cross-market mergers on mortality and readmission rates for heart failure, heart attacks and pneumonia.
- Overall, this study provides further evidence that cross-market hospital mergers lead to price increases and novel findings of no quality effect and the impact of serial acquirers on the price effect. More antitrust scrutiny of these mergers—particularly those of serial acquirers—appears prudent given the current state of highly concentrated hospital markets in the United States.
Questions should be addressed to Daniel Arnold, [email protected]
- Private Equity–Acquired Physician Practices And Market Penetration Increased Substantially, 2012–21
By Ola Abdelhadi, Brent D. Fulton, Laura Alexander, Richard M. Scheffler | Published March 2024 in Health Affairs | Link to full report.
“Private equity (PE) firms have been acquiring physician practices at an increasing rate, raising concerns about such firms’ penetration at the physician level into local markets and the impact on health care quality and prices. However, limited knowledge exists about the extent of PE firms’ control in local markets. By linking data on PE acquisitions to physician data and using full-time-equivalent physicians as the base of assessment, we estimated the local market share of each PE firm within ten physician specialties at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level.”
Petris Director Joins the Better Healthcare Policy Group
