J. Michael McWilliams, M.D., Ph.D.

J. Michael McWilliams, M.D., Ph.D., is an associate professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing general internist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. McWilliams’s research focuses on health care spending, quality, access, and disparities in aging populations with chronic conditions. His current research focuses on accountable care organizations (ACOs), measurement of low-value care, organizational determinants of technology diffusion, risk adjustment of prospective payments and quality measures, and the effects of provider consolidation on health care utilization and prices. Some of his most recent publications have appeared in JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, Health Services Research, and Health Affairs.

Dr. McWilliams recently completed two career development awards, a Paul B. Beeson Career Development award in Aging Research from the National Institute on Aging and the American Federation for Aging Research, and a Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. He received his B.S. degree with highest distinction in biology as a Morehead Scholar from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his M.D. degree magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School, and his Ph.D. in Health Policy from Harvard University.

Since December 2013, Dr. McWilliams has been the principal investigator of a HCFO-funded study which will estimate the impact of physician concentration, physician-hospital integration, and ACOs on spending and prices for physician services. The research team will use Truven Health Analytics MarketScan claims data to measure spending and prices in commercial markets and Medicare claims to measure spending in Medicare. They will also use American Medical Association Group Practice data linked to Medicare claims to measure market share of provider groups, claims-based metrics of physician-hospital integration, ACO provider networks and linked claims to measure ACO formation and penetration, and American Hospital Association data to examine hospital market concentration. The goal of this project is to inform policy discussions on provider concentration and integration.   

Additional information about Dr. McWilliams’s HCFO-funded work is available here. More information on his research and a list of selected publications can be found here.

This project was funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s solicitation “Understanding the Use and Impact of Price Data in Health Care.”