Jeff Marr

Changes in US Skilled Nursing Facility Capacity Following the COVID-19 Pandemic This cross-sectional study assesses changes in skilled nursing facility capacity after the COVID-19 pandemic primarily using Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data from 2019 to 2024 on Medi...

New work from @mlbarnett.bsky.social, Andrew Wilcock, Ashvin Gandhi, Fangli Geng, David Grabowski, & me in @jamainternalmed.com documenting declines in SNF capacity in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Nursing home effort fluctuates with the inspection cycle, affecting patient survival. Unpredictable inspection schedules may boost effort and save lives, from Ashvin Gandhi, Andrew Olenski, and Maggie Shi www.nber.org/papers/w34491

Digital Distractions with Peer Influence: The Impact of Mobile App Usage on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes* Abstract. Concerns about excessive mobile phone use among youth are mounting. We present estimates of both behavioral and contextual peer effects, along wi

Recently accepted by #QJE, “Digital Distractions with Peer Influence: The Impact of Mobile App Usage on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes,” by Barwick, Chen, Fu, and Li: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

A Closer Look at a Widely Despised Health Insurance Policy Every year, millions of people’s medical care runs into the roadblock known as prior authorization, which requires a patient’s health insurer to sign off before chemotherapy, surgery or countless othe...

Few topics in health care policy can incite passions like insurer prior authorization. What do researchers know about this practice? I spoke with @dgorenstein.bsky.social and @lesliemwalker.bsky.social for the latest @tradeoffs.org podcast.

tradeoffs.org/2025/09/25/a...

Question Has hospital length of stay increased more for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries than for traditional Medicare beneficiaries since the COVID-19 pandemic?Findings In this cohort study involving more than 89 million hospitalizations from 2017 to the third quarter of 2023, Medicare Advantage beneficiaries experienced disproportionately greater increases in extended hospital stays, especially among those discharged to skilled nursing facilities.Meaning These findings suggest that the Medicare Advantage plan design and practices may contribute to hospital discharge delays, with implications for patient outcomes and hospital capacity as enrollment continues to rise.

New paper w/ Brian McGarry, Ashvin Gandhi, and Drew Wilcock in @jamainternalmed.com!

Hospitals are complaining across the US that patients are "stuck" waiting for rehab beds at nursing homes when they are medically stable and ready for discharge. What is going on??

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

AI scribe companies promise to help doctors bill more. Who will pay the extra cost? Like any conscientious health policy Ph.D. student, Paige Nong went to the doctor for her free annual well visit. But as she checked in, the person at the

We think of AI as something that decreases costs and increases revenue. But _for whom_ does it make more $?

AI scribe companies promise that doctors will now get paid for everything they did in a visit. But where is that money coming from?

All of us.

More from me @statnews.com:
🖥️🩺

Senate GOP eyes Medicare Advantage reforms as a way to pay for tax cuts Senators see a crackdown on Medicare Advantage upcoding as a potential way to generate savings.

Senators see a crackdown on Medicare Advantage upcoding as a potential way to generate savings.

🚨 New paper alert, with @johnjhorton.bsky.social! Using an experiment run on a large online labor market, we provide evidence that providing employers access to an AI-written first draft of a job post harms the efficiency of the market.

emmawiles.github.io/storage/jobo...

It was a pleasure to write this piece for Health Affairs on risk adjustment in Medicare. Risk adjustment modifies payments to health plans or ACOs based on patient/beneficiary characteristics. Here's a very brief summary of my thoughts🧵

www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1...

AI has a growing role in processing health insurance claims - Marketplace AI uses algorithms trained on types of patients and types of care. But these decisions often require nuance, which AI may not have.

"I suspect that anyone who has been invoiced, paid a bill has been touched or has touched AI — certainly if it’s occurred within the last couple years."

There's renewed attention as to how claims are reviewed, approved, or denied. To what extent are AI and software algorithms saying yes or no?

Thanks Jeff!

UnitedHealth pays its own physician groups considerably more than others, driving up consumer costs and its profits First-of-its-kind data analysis finds UnitedHealth Group pays many of its own physician practices significantly more than the average it pays other doctors in the same markets

NEW: UnitedHealth Group is paying many of its own physician practices significantly more than it pays other doctor groups in the same markets for similar services, undermining competition and driving up costs for consumers and businesses. www.statnews.com/2024/11/25/u...