Studies have shown the United States faces a shortage of physicians, making it increasingly difficult for people to access needed health care. Physicians need graduate medical education (GME) training before they can practice medicine independently and often practice in the same geographic area as their training. The vast majority of federal…

Members of Congress and others have questioned whether expanding the scope of the Medicare graduate medical education (GME) program to include nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) could help mitigate the effects of a physician shortage in the United States. A Senate Committee on Appropriations report asked the US Government…

The effective use of financial resources is critical for all educational institutions, especially those K-12 schools that rely on public funding for their main operating revenue. As public entities and state governments increasingly struggle to find the revenue necessary to operate prisons, fund Medicaid/Medicare, improve an aging infrastructure,…

Medicare home health care provides critical skilled nursing and therapy services to patients in their homes, generally after a period in an inpatient facility or nursing home. Disparities in access to, or outcomes of, home health care can result in patient deterioration and increased cost to the Medicare program if patient care needs intensify.…

Physician graduate medical education (GME) provides the clinical education to practice medicine independently in the U.S. Agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) fund GME, including over $15 billion from Medicare in 2018 (the latest year for which data were available). To be eligible for federal funding, GME programs…

Access to health care is, in part, determined by the availability of physicians, a function of the physician supply. Policymakers have demonstrated a long-standing interest in access to care, both in general and for specific populations. Moreover, federal support for medical residency training (a.k.a., graduate medical education [GME]) is the…

The Medicare prescription drug benefit (Medicare Part D) is the biggest change to Medicare in decades. Knowledge of the plan among social work undergraduate students and older adults in the community was assessed. Sequential cohorts of students completed a short questionnaire assessing knowledge about Medicare Part D. Among social work students,…

Today's physician education system produces trained doctors with strong scientific underpinnings in biological and physical sciences as well as supervised practical experience in delivering care. Significant financial public support underlies the graduate-level training of the nation's physicians. Two federal programs--Medicare and…

Access to effective and comprehensive transition programming is pivotal to transition of youth with disabilities to work and independent living. Successful programs often blend key ingredients, including individualized educational planning, career development, work experiences in secondary school, and interagency partnerships/collaborations.…

Wage differentials across college majors are huge and have been increasing. The type of college education becomes important for college students in terms of future earnings. Understanding the treatment effect of major choice in a certain occupation is difficult because of the sorting behavior and the effect of occupation choice. In order to…

In the first chapter titled "Cognitive Ability, Education, and Fertility Risk", I explore the role of cognitive ability in fertility timing. Women in the bottom quartile of the cognitive ability distribution are nine times more likely to have their first child as a teenager. First, I document the differences in age at childbirth by…

This article describes a case example of a pedagogical approach that successfully integrates teaching technical skills, knowledge, and civic engagement. Students embarked on a semester-long project to assess the complexities of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, develop a response to address the concerns of community constituents, and…