Promotion of medical products by manufacturers to physicians in the US has been widespread for over a century [1], and in its traditional form includes strategies such as direct detailing visits (inperson product promotion by a pharmaceutical representative), sponsorship of Continuing Medical Education programs, gifts or other inducements, and free samples [2]. In the past two decades, numerous...

Research Summary We consider the context of a technology market where participants (in particular, sellers) differ in reputation, and sellers observed participating transactions might suffer reputation loss. Our theoretical model predicts that low-reputation idea sellers, thanks to improvement information disclosure, are more likely be involved transactions; at same time, high-reputation protec...

The practice of contemporary pain medicine is laced with a number of significant ethical challenges. Considerable difficulties include the overutilization of interventional procedures, the application of under-evidenced treatment modalities, and potentially superfluous opioid prescribing. As with many other fields in medicine, including orthopedic surgery, relationships with industry are both c...

In 2006, the Synthesis Project published a research synthesis on the impact of hospital mergers on prices, costs and quality of care (38). Since that time, the literature has expanded a great deal. We review those subsequent findings in this Synthesis Update. In particular, we focus on the impact of hospital mergers on prices and quality, and introduce a review of the evidence on physician-hosp...

Medicare payment disproportionately impacts rural physicians compared to urban. For example, 51% of rural physicians, compared to 44% of urban physicians, receive at least 38% of their payments from Medicare.1 Thus, the Medicare physician payment system is of significant rural interest. In this policy brief, we present the effects of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernizatio...