December 7, 2023

Executive Editor Katie Gudiksen was mentioned in the 12/7/2023 Frontiers article “Editorial: Health Systems Performance: Market Structure, Consolidation, and Health Care Prices”

The article by Changfei Nie and Yuan Feng examines China’s national comprehensive medical reform (NCMR) pilot policy to study per capita medical expenses for inpatients and outpatients and the roles that hospital competition and institutional environment play in driving per capita medical expenses. The paper by Manuel Hermosilla, Caleb Alexander, and Dan Polsky studies the link between COVID-19-induced unemployment and reductions in access to statin medications. Their study recognizes the potential role of price effects on consumers’ ability to afford needed medications and the need for improved reporting and price transparency to fully explore these relationships. Katherine L. Gudiksen and Robert B. Murray focus on the lack of price transparency in the US health care system -“prices vary in nearly incomprehensible ways that do not correlate with quality” and offer policy options to control rising health care prices in the United States. Alexandra Montague, Robin L. Davison, Katherine L. Gudiksen, and Jaime S. King address the role of increased consolidation among healthcare providers, such as health systems, hospitals, and physicians on the healthcare market in the United States and the potential negative consequences of highly concentrated healthcare provider markets, including higher prices, mixed quality outcomes, and reduced access to healthcare services.