Many goods and services can be readily provided through a series of unconnected transactions, but in health care close coordination over time and within care episodes improves both health outcomes and efficiency. Close coordination is problematic in the US health care system because the...

Many goods and services can be readily provided through a series of unconnected transactions, but in health care close coordination over time and within care episodes improves both health outcomes and efficiency. Close coordination is problematic in the US health care system because the...

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. Economists seeking to improve the efficiency of health care delivery frequently emphasize two issues: the fragmented structure of...

We propose a "common-agency" model for explaining inefficient contracting in the U.S. healthcare system. In our setting, common-agency problems arise when multiple payers seek to motivate a shared provider to invest in improved care coordination. Our approach differs from other common-agency...

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are new organizations created by the Affordable Care Act to encourage more efficient, integrated care delivery. To promote efficiency, ACOs sign contracts under which they keep a fraction of the savings from keeping costs below target provided they also...

We investigate whether information technology can help physicians more efficiently acquire new knowledge in a clinical environment characterized by information overload. Our analysis makes use of data from a randomized trial as well as a theoretical model of the influence that information...