My research focuses on evaluating the effects of coverage and reimbursement policies in orthopaedic surgery, including assessing the impact that evolving payment reform policies have on health care utilization, safety and ultimately patient well-being. For example, through an AHRQ-funded R01 I am examining the effects of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation’s (CMMI) Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement program, a bundled payment program referencing regional-based pricing.
I’ve had a longstanding interest in research related to back pain, and more specifically on the safety of spine surgery, where I have broad expertise in the analysis of administrative health care databases (including Medicare, HCUP and MEPS), multi-level modelling in observational data, analysis of surveys involving complex sampling strategies, and applied Bayesian approaches to safety monitoring.
