Austin B. Frakt
Profiles

Austin B. Frakt, PhD

Research Professor, Health Law, Policy & Management - Boston University School of Public Health

Biography

Austin Frakt, Ph.D., is a Health Economist and Director of the Partnered Evidence-based Policy Resource Center at the Boston VA Healthcare System. He is also a Professor of Health Law, Policy & Management with the Boston University School of Public Health and a Principal Research Scientist with the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Frakt is Editor-in-Chief of Health Services Research and serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Managed Care.
He is also an Editor-in-Chief and a primary author of the evidence-based health policy blog The Incidental Economist.

Dr. Frakt has conducted research studies funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institute on Aging, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. His work has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Milbank Quarterly, Health Care Financing Review, Health Affairs, Health Economics, Health Services Research, International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, among other journals.

Dr. Frakt received his Ph.D. from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in statistical and applied mathematics. He also received a master’s degree from MIT, and his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in Applied and Engineering Physics.

Other Positions

  • Visiting Associate Professor - Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Education

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhD Field of Study: Electrical Engineering
  • Cornell University, BS
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SM/ScM Field of Study: Electrical Engineering

Publications

  • Published on 3/5/2023

    Frakt A, Tachibana C. From the Editor's Desk: Publishing in HSR in 2021. Health Serv Res. 2023 Mar 05. PMID: 36872309.

    Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 2/20/2023

    Frakt A, Tachibana C. HSR's outstanding reviewers in 2022. Health Serv Res. 2023 Apr; 58(2):241. PMID: 36746612.

    Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 2/3/2023

    Beckman AL, Frakt AB, Duggan C, Zheng J, Orav EJ, Tsai TC, Figueroa JF. Evaluation of Potentially Avoidable Acute Care Utilization Among Patients Insured by Medicare Advantage vs Traditional Medicare. JAMA Health Forum. 2023 Feb 03; 4(2):e225530. PMID: 36826828.

    Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 1/31/2023

    Richerson JT, Wagner TH, Abrams T, Skelton K, Biswas K, Illarmo S, McSherry F, Fallon MT, Frakt A, Pizer S, Magruder KM, Groer S, Dorn PA, Huang GD, Stock EM. Therapeutic and Economic Benefits of Service Dogs Versus Emotional Support Dogs for Veterans With PTSD. Psychiatr Serv. 2023 Jan 31; appips20220138. PMID: 36718602.

    Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 12/10/2022

    Auty SG, Barr KD, Frakt AB, Garrido MM, Strombotne KL. Effect of a Veterans Health Administration mandate to case review patients with opioid prescriptions on mortality among patients with opioid use disorder: a secondary analysis of the STORM randomized control trial. Addiction. 2022 Dec 10. PMID: 36495477.

    Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 11/1/2022

    Whaley C, Frakt A. If Patients Don't Use Available Health Service Pricing Information, Is Transparency Still Important? AMA J Ethics. 2022 Nov 01; 24(11):E1056-1062. PMID: 36342488.

    Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 8/19/2022

    Garrido MM, Jones DK, Woodruff A, Strombotne K, Palani S, Zahakos S, Adelberg M, Pizer SD, Frakt AB. Detecting fraud, waste, and abuse in substance use disorder treatment. Health Serv Res. 2022 Oct; 57(5):997-1000. PMID: 35932224.

    Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 6/17/2022

    Minegishi T, Garrido MM, Lewis ET, Oliva EM, Pizer SD, Strombotne KL, Trafton JA, Tenso K, Sohoni PS, Frakt AB. Randomized Policy Evaluation of the Veterans Health Administration Stratification Tool for Opioid Risk Mitigation (STORM). J Gen Intern Med. 2022 Nov; 37(14):3746-3750. PMID: 35715661.

    Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 6/1/2022

    Patel SY, Huskamp HA, Frakt AB, Auerbach DI, Neprash HT, Barnett ML, James HO, Mehrotra A. Frequency Of Indirect Billing To Medicare For Nurse Practitioner And Physician Assistant Office Visits. Health Aff (Millwood). 2022 Jun; 41(6):805-813. PMID: 35666969.

    Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 5/2/2022

    Strombotne KL, Legler A, Minegishi T, Trafton JA, Oliva EM, Lewis ET, Sohoni P, Garrido MM, Pizer SD, Frakt AB. Effect of a Predictive Analytics-Targeted Program in Patients on Opioids: a Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. J Gen Intern Med. 2023 Feb; 38(2):375-381. PMID: 35501628.

    Read At: PubMed

News & In the Media