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Open research questions in Healthcare Policy and Management

315 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 4,449 Healthcare Policy and Management papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • The gap in the literature is the lack of understanding of how to induce hospitals to deliver positive unverifiable quality in a healthcare setting. The paper identifies the need to distinguish between verifiable and non-verifiable service characteristics in contracting for quality. The gap is also in the empirical analysis of the relationship between political stability and quality outcomes in healthcare.

    Contracting unverifiable quality in healthcare: the importance of political stability for relational contracts · 2026 · DOI

  • The study aims to fill the gap in understanding the impact of payment reform on neonatal healthcare costs. The study examines the changes in neonatal inpatient case mix, resource utilization, and hospitalization costs from 2020 to 2024.

    Changes in neonatal inpatient resource utilization and cost drivers under payment reform: a five-year retrospective real-world data study · 2026 · DOI

  • further examination of the authors' proposal for universal coverage, - analysis of the potential costs and benefits of implementing a universal public plan, - investigation of the impact of cost-sharing on medical spending and financial risk

    We've Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Careby LiranEinav and AmyFinkelstein. Penguin, 2023, 304 pp., $29 (paperback). · 2025 · DOI

  • The current healthcare system in the United States has shortcomings in coverage. There is a need for a solution that can provide universal coverage without increased government spending on healthcare. The authors identify a gap in the current system, where the top 5% of people with the costliest care consume half of the national total, leaving no government funds to redistribute to the healthcare of the other 95% of Americans.

    We've Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Careby LiranEinav and AmyFinkelstein. Penguin, 2023, 304 pp., $29 (paperback). · 2025 · DOI

  • The paper identifies the challenge of childcare needs as a barrier to healthcare access. The review highlights the difficulty of addressing childcare needs, particularly for vulnerable populations. The paper notes the challenge of developing effective interventions to overcome childcare barriers to healthcare access.

    Childcare as a social determinant of access to healthcare: a scoping review · 2024 · DOI

  • The literature search was limited to publications between January 2000 and June 2023, - Several studies were excluded due to population, setting, measures, or article type, - Review papers were excluded, - One article was inaccessible to the reviewers

    Childcare as a social determinant of access to healthcare: a scoping review · 2024 · DOI

  • Future insufficient multicenter studies incorporating standardized severity measures, detailed procedure codes, ventilation duration, and long-term outcomes are warranted.

    Changes in neonatal inpatient resource utilization and cost drivers under payment reform: a five-year retrospective real-world data study · 2026 · DOI

  • Throughout, we highlight open research questions, arguing that the enormous variation in how states design these programs—combined with limited evidence on what works—represents a promising area for high-impact scholarship.

    Understanding Medicaid Managed Care: The Procured Competition Model · 2026 · DOI

  • No standard screening tool exists for use by hospital-based healthcare providers to identify children with medical complexity (CMC), which can result in inconsistent MH referrals.

    Medical Home Screening Tool Development and Validation Among a Sample of Infants and Young Children · 2026 · DOI

  • Despite the increasing role of administrators in the healthcare industry, administrative harms are largely under-researched.

    Family Physicians' experiences of administrative Harms · 2026 · DOI

  • Recipients of government transfers are disadvantaged, yet little is known about how their circumstances evolve leading up to program receipt in the modern era.

    Sliding into Safety Net Participation: A Unified Analysis Across Multiple Programs · 2025 · DOI

  • The possible link between welfare state institutions and trust has been a popular research topic in recent decades, but the connection between healthcare evaluations and trust is underexplored.

    The Role of Institutional Trust in European Healthcare Evaluations—A Comparison of Absolute and Relative Healthcare Attitudes During the COVID‐19 Pandemic · 2025 · DOI

  • CONCLUSIONS: The evidence on experiences, benefits and barriers of PICMs among CMC, families and carers is scarce, and the voices of CMC are largely absent.

    Family Experiences of Integrated Care for Children With Medical Complexity: A Scoping Review · 2025 · DOI

  • Paediatric integrated care models (PICMs) support health care coordination, but little is known about experiences and perceived benefits and barriers among CMC, parents or carers while accessing PICMs.

    Family Experiences of Integrated Care for Children With Medical Complexity: A Scoping Review · 2025 · DOI

  • Importance: Adults with functional disabilities require more medical care, but it remains unclear whether they use more health services, including high- and low-value services.

    Health Care Utilization Patterns Among Adults With or Without Functional Disabilities · 2025 · DOI

  • Yet, little is known about how families with CMC discuss their housing needs with healthcare providers.

    Family perspectives on provider conversations about housing needs for children with medical complexity · 2024 · DOI

  • One of the more intriguing defenses continually used was that critics did not know the researchers on the study and, therefore, could not assess their ethics.

    To Know Me Is to Exonerate Me: Appeals to Character in Defense of the Willowbrook Hepatitis Study · 2024 · DOI

  • Importance: Commercial prices for hospital care are high and vary widely in the US.

    Within-Hospital Price Gaps Across National Insurers · 2024 · DOI

  • The extent to which this population lost Medicaid coverage before and during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) and the characteristics of beneficiaries more at risk for coverage loss are currently not well known.

    Medicaid Eligibility Loss Among Dual-Eligible Beneficiaries Before and During COVID-19 Public Health Emergency · 2024 · DOI

  • BACKGROUND: Social risk factors are key drivers of the geographic variation in spending in the United States but little is known how community-level social risk factors are associated with hospital prices.

    The relationship between community social risk factors and regional hospital-reported cash, negotiated, and chargemaster prices for 14 common services · 2024 · DOI

  • The gap between knowing equity and doing equity in healthcare. The lack of a shared institutional architecture capable of linking analysis, organisational design, and evaluation across system levels.

    Knowing equity, doing equity: healthcare cultures and why reforms stall in everyday care · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should examine how emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence in clinical decision- making, interact with these cultural mechanisms, amplifying or trans- forming classificatory hierarchies depending on the institutional cultures in which they are embedded (31).

    Knowing equity, doing equity: healthcare cultures and why reforms stall in everyday care · 2026 · DOI

  • Disentangling the channels requires within-state, within-DRG variation in HHI. Further research should consider the relationship between hospital charges and Medicare payments in other contexts.

    The Opacity Premium: A Model of Hospital Charge-to-Payment Ratios · 2026 · DOI

  • No formal model explains the structure of hospital charge-to-payment ratios. Prior work has not explained why hospital charges are not related to costs or Medicare reimbursement.

    The Opacity Premium: A Model of Hospital Charge-to-Payment Ratios · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a lack of empirical evidence on the ethical implications of DRG-based financing in Germany. The study aims to fill this gap by examining the perceptions of physicians and hospital managerial stakeholders.

    Ethical perceptions of DRG-based hospital financing among physicians and hospital managers in Germany: a cross-sectional survey · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Healthcare Policy and Management

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315 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 4,449 Healthcare Policy and Management papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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