Jason Shafrin

Los Angeles

Senior Managing Director, Center for Healthcare Economics and Policy, FTI Consulting Adjunct Professor, USC Founder, Healthcare Economist Blog

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Articles

Cost impact of BTKi selection in Medicare patients with CLL

6 days ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin

Cancer My Papers Cost impact of BTKi selection in Medicare patients with CLL Aim: To estimate cost savings associated with covalent Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor (cBTKi) choice in patients with treatment-naive (TN) and relapsed/refractory (RR) chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) from a Medicare perspective.
Weekend Reading - Healthcare Economist

1 week ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin
An empirical test for the Fair Innings hypothesis

1 week ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin

Economics - General An empirical test for the Fair Innings hypothesis Suppose you have a single pill at your disposal and that pill will extend any person’s life by 10 years. You have to choose to give it to one of the following tow individuals:a 20‐year‐old patient, who will live for 10 more years if she gets the drug, and then she dies;a 70‐year‐old patient, who will live for 10 more years if she gets the drug, and then she dies.
What share of code is being written by AI?

1 week ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin

AI Economics - General Technology What share of code is being written by AI? A paper by Daniotti et al. (2025) examines 80 million GitHub commits (2018–2024). The authors trained neural classifier to spot AI-generated Python functions in the GitHub code. As one can see below, nearly 1/3 of code in the US is being written by AI as of the end of 2024.
Do pay-for-performance programs actually improve quality of care?

1 week ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin

P4P Quality Do pay-for-performance programs actually improve quality of care? This is one of the fundamental questions in health policy in recent years. Quality can be measured in two parts. First, does quality improved for targeted patients? Second, does quality improve for non-targeted patients. The first question is relatively clear.
Which states have the most private-equity owned hospitals?

2 weeks ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin

Uncategorized Which states have the most private-equity owned hospitals? Data from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) provides the answer. Data below are sorted by most to least number (N) private equity-owned hospitals. One can clearly see that Texas is leading the way in terms of raw numbers but New Mexico has the highest share of hospitals that are PE-owned.
States starting to limit payer use of prior authorization?

2 weeks ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin

Health Insurance Managed Care States starting to limit payer use of prior authorization? The trend is continuing this year. Just a few weeks ago, Politico wrote:Within the past few months, states including California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, New Jersey, North Carolina and North Dakota have either proposed or enacted reforms aimed at simplifying and streamlining prior authorization.
How should nurse practitioners and physician assistants bill for their services?

2 weeks ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin

Nonphysician Clinicians How should nurse practitioners and physician assistants bill for their services? That is the topic of a Health Affairs Forefront article by Neprash, Perkins and Mehrotra (2025). This is an important question as approximately one in four visits are now provided by nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) across the Medicare program.
Key readings to help you evaluate a major change to US drug pricing policy

3 weeks ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin

My Papers Pharmaceuticals Public Policy Key readings to help you evaluate a major change to US drug pricing policy On May 12, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order calling for “most favored nation” (MFN) drug pricing in the US. Key questions you may have include: ▪ What is MFN pricing? ▪ Which countries will be included in the MFN basket? ▪ How much lower are drug prices ex-US vs US? ▪ How should I evaluate MFN?
Consequences of Tariffs on Pharmaceutical Products

3 weeks ago | healthcare-economist.com | Jason Shafrin

Pharmaceuticals Public Policy Consequences of Tariffs on Pharmaceutical Products The Budget Lab at Yale University projected that a 25% ad valorem tariff would increase medication costs by an “average of around $600 per year per household in the United States.”3 Tariffs can also create supply chain disruptions, increase costs and limit patient access to essential medications, and negatively impact research and innovation.