Regulating Hospital Prices Based On Market Concentration Is Likely To Leave High-Price Hospitals Unaffected.

Concern about high hospital prices for commercially insured patients has motivated several proposals to regulate these prices. Such proposals often limit regulations to highly concentrated hospital markets. Using a large sample of 2017 US commercial insurance claims, we demonstrate that under the market definition commonly used in these proposals, most high-price hospitals are in markets that would be deemed competitive or "moderately concentrated," using antitrust guidelines.

Race-Conscious Professionalism and African American Representation in Academic Medicine.

African Americans remain substantially less likely than other physicians to hold academic appointments. The roots of these disparities stem from different extrinsic and intrinsic forces that guide career development. Efforts to ameliorate African American underrepresentation in academic medicine have traditionally focused on modifying structural and extrinsic barriers through undergraduate and graduate outreach, diversity and inclusion initiatives at medical schools, and faculty development programs.

Patient and provider perceptions of why patients seek care in emergency departments.

Background: Little is known about why patients choose emergency departments (EDs) to receive care.

Objective: Our aim was to measure the distribution and frequency of the stated reasons why patients choose the ED for care and why primary care physicians (PCPs) think their patients utilize the ED.

Methods: The authors conducted a survey of patients presenting to an ED with 92,000 annual visits.

Neurobiology of food addiction.

Purpose Of Review: To review recent work on disorders related to food use, including food addiction, and to highlight the similarities and differences between food and drugs of abuse.

Recent Findings: Recent work on food use disorders has demonstrated that the same neurobiological pathways that are implicated in drug abuse also modulate food consumption, and that the body's regulation of food intake involves a complex set of peripheral and central signaling networks. Moreover, new research indicates that rats can become addicted to certain foods, that men and women may respond differently to external food cues, and that the intrauterine environment may significantly impact a child's subsequent risk of developing obesity, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia.