Zirui Song, MD, PhD

Bio

Zirui Song, M.D., Ph.D. is an associate professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School and a general internist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he practices primary care and attends on the inpatient medicine teaching service.

Dr. Song’s research focuses on the health and economic effects of financial incentives, public policies, and private sector interventions in the health care system. This has included studies of payment reform, Medicare financing, health care prices, employer efforts to address health care spending, and private capital investments in health care delivery. Related work examines issues in the delivery system that pertain to public health, including primary care and firearm injury.

Dr. Song directs the Health Policy concentration in the MGH Internal Medicine Residency Program. He teaches the Essentials of the Profession–Health Policy course for first-year Harvard medical and dental students, health policy course for Mass General Brigham residents, and Executive Education courses for U.S. employers and international audiences. He has received several teaching awards and the Young Mentor Award at HMS. He currently advises medical trainees and Ph.D. students.

Dr. Song has worked on Medicare payment policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with state policymakers on health care access and affordability. He has served on committees for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and other institutions. He is an Associate Editor of JAMA Health Forum and Editorial Board member of Health Services Research.

Dr. Song is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and American Society for Clinical Investigation. His work has been recognized by AcademyHealth, Society of General Internal Medicine, American College of Physicians, National Institute for Health Care Management, and International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. For clinical work, he received the Morton N. Swartz, M.D. Humanism in Medicine Award at MGH.  

Dr. Song trained in internal medicine (primary care track) at MGH. He received an M.D. magna cum laude from HMS and Ph.D. in Health Policy (economics track) from Harvard, where he was a fellow in Aging and Health Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He received a B.A. in Public Health Studies with honors from Johns Hopkins University.

Working Papers

PRICING AND PASS-THROUGH IN RESPONSE TO SUBSIDIES AND COMPETITION: EVIDENCE FROM MEDICARE ADVANTAGE BEFORE AND AFTER THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

After years of growth, federal payments to Medicare Advantage plans began to decline after the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We exploit variation in those payments caused by the ACA to assess whether insurers respond symmetrically to payment increases and decreases pre- and post-ACA. We find that plans changed their pricing and pass-through to beneficiaries symmetrically, with plans passing through roughly 60 cents for each dollar of payment increases or decreases. However, plans reduced less salient benefits post-ACA by more than they had increased them pre-ACA, even though they left premiums virtually unchanged. Partial pass-through suggests that plans likely operate above cost; plans in more competitive markets responded less to payment changes than plans in less competitive markets. Partial pass-through of payment cuts, combined with quality bonuses and growth in risk scores, may explain the continued growth in Medicare Advantage enrollment post-ACA.

CV

Curriculum  Vitae

Contact

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