News Release
U-M School of Public Health researcher wins top national award
Richard Hirth, Ph.D. honored by AcademyHealth for research that focuses on impact of patient choice, quality of care and costs related to end stage renal disease
February 5, 2014
ANN ARBOR, Mich. —University of Michigan School of Public Health Professor Richard Hirth received AcademyHealth’s 2014 Health Services Research Impact Award for work that contributed to the development of a prospective payment system that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services employed to improve patient choice and quality of care, and potentially reduce costs in the treatment of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).
For more than 40 years, Medicare has been a near single-payer for ESRD patients. For many, dialysis is the primary, life-saving treatment, yet these patients experience both high mortality rates (up to 20 percent in the first year of dialysis) and very high costs. In fact, ESRD patients represent about 1 percent of Medicare population but account for more than 6 percent of Medicare spending. For these reasons, understanding and addressing the incentives built into the Medicare payment system could significantly impact both the cost and quality of care received by this highly vulnerable population.
Hirth and colleagues conducted research that provided Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with the evidence needed to develop a more efficient bundled prospective payment system. The new system saves taxpayers money by creating incentives to reduce inappropriately high doses of medications and the use of higher cost medications when lower cost options exist. Early evidence indicates the new system is also preserving, and in some cases enhancing, patient access to care.
“Professor Hirth is a leading authority on the economics of kidney disease in the financing of dialysis care through the Medicare program. This award recognizes his major contributions to national health policy and practice,” said Kyle Grazier, professor and chair of the U-M Department of Health Management and Policy.
Hirth is professor and associate chair of the Department of Health Management and Policy; research director of the Center for Value-based Insurance Design; and associate director of the Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center, all located at the U-M School of Public Health. He also is a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the U-M Health System, and member of the U-M’s Institute for Health Care Policy and Innovation.
“The HSR Impact Award is presented annually to health services research studies that make a clear impact on health policy and practice,” said AcademyHealth President and CEO Lisa Simpson. “In this case, Dr. Hirth and his colleagues provided the evidence policymakers needed to make decisions that made care for critically ill patients more efficient. In doing so, the work exemplifies the important contributions health services research makes to health and health care.”
AcademyHealth is a national organization that brings health services and policy stakeholders together to address the current and future needs of an evolving health system, inform health policy, and translate evidence into action.
A full description of Dr. Hirth’s winning research can be found here.
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