Should Medicare's Value-Based Pricing Be Adjusted for Social Risk Factors? The Role of Research Evidence in Policy Deliberations

Steven Sheingold is an economist and director of the Division of Health Financing Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation in the US Department of Health and Human Services. He conducts economic and policy research on the health care markets as well as the Medicare program, including payment policy, the role of social risk in Medicare value-based purchasing programs, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, Part D, and implementation of the new physician payment systems mandated by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.

steven.sheingold@hhs.gov

Rachael B. Zuckerman is a health services researcher in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation in the US Department of Health and Human Services. She conducts policy research on the Medicare program, including current projects on the role of social risk in Medicare value-based purchasing programs, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, and implementation of the new physician payment systems mandated by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.

Nancy De Lew is the associate deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the US Department of Health and Human Services. She serves as the senior career official in the Office of Health Policy, where she leads a team who apply their skills in policy development, strategic planning, research, and evaluation to some of the department's most challenging health policy problems. She provides executive leadership and coordination on a broad range of health care financing, coverage, access, public health, and quality issues.

Karen E. Joynt Maddox is a practicing cardiologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and assistant professor at Washington University School of Medicine and School of Social Work, as well as a health policy adviser for BJC Healthcare, a fifteen-hospital system in Missouri and Illinois. She served from 2014 to 2016 as senior adviser in the Office of Health Policy, US Department of Health and Human Services. She is a health services and health policy researcher whose main areas of focus are quality measurement, value-based and alternative payment models, and disparities in care.

Arnold M. Epstein is the John H. Foster Professor of Health Policy and Management and chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard Chan School of Public Health. His research interests focus on quality of care and access to care. During 1993–94 he served in the Clinton administration and in 2014–16 he served as deputy assistant secretary in the US Department of Health and Human Services. He received the Distinguished Investigator Award from AcademyHealth in 2015. He is an associate editor at the New England Journal of Medicine and is member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Association of American Physicians.