Yaa Akosa Antwi, Ph.D.

Yaa Akosa Antwi, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of economics at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. Previously, she was an instructor at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests include health economics, public economics, and applied microeconomics. Her work has been published through numerous outlets including the Forum for Health Economics & Policy and National Bureau of Economic Research Working Papers. 

Dr. Akosa Antwi received her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in applied economics and management. She also holds a master’s in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University, and a bachelor’s in computer science and economics from Knox College.

Since September 2012, Dr. Akosa Antwi has been the principal investigator on a HCFO grant exploring the effect of California’s ban on balance billing on emergency room care. Focusing primarily on Kaiser Permanente patients, but with additional analyses of patients covered by other insurers, the researchers will compare the quality and quantity of care received by treatment and control groups before and after the balance billing ban. They will control for confounding factors that may affect treatment intensity and health outcomes and test robustness using a subset of enrollees whose final diagnosis is a heart attack, as patients with a heart attack routinely go to the closest emergency room and do not self-select their hospital. The goal of this project is to provide policymakers with information on the effects of balance billing bans as they relate to the quality of care received in the emergency department. For more information on Dr. Akosa Antwi's work, please visit the HCFO website.