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 an Associate Professor affiliated with the Boston University School of Public Health; a Visiting Associate Professor with the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and an Adjunct Senior Fellow, Leonard Davis Institute, University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Frakt is an Editor-in-Chief and a primary author of the evidence-based health policy blog The Incidental Economist. He is a regular contributor on health policy topics to The New York Times’ The Upshot and the Journal of the American Medical Association Forum. Dr. Frakt is a senior associate editor for Health Services Research and serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Managed Care. He is chair of the AcademyHealth Translation and Dissemination Institute Advisory Committee and is a member of the New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council. Dr. Frakt has conducted research studies funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, 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
Websites
Education
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhD
- Cornell University, BS
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SM/ScM
Publications
- Published on 1/1/2020
Frakt AB, Oberlander J. Challenges To Medicare For All Remain Daunting. Health Aff (Millwood). 2020 Jan; 39(1):142-145. PMID: 31905071.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 12/21/2019
Burke LG, Zhou X, Boyle KL, Orav EJ, Bernson D, Hood ME, Land T, Bharel M, Frakt AB. Trends in opioid use disorder and overdose among opioid-naive individuals receiving an opioid prescription in Massachusetts from 2011 to 2014. Addiction. 2020 Mar; 115(3):493-504. PMID: 31691390.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 12/17/2019
Frakt AB. Making Health Care More Productive. JAMA. 2019 Dec 17; 322(23):2274-2275. PMID: 31846006.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 10/1/2019
Kilbourne AM, Braganza MZ, Bowersox NW, Goodrich DE, Miake-Lye I, Floyd N, Garrido MM, Frakt AB, Bever CT, Vega R, Ramoni R. Research Lifecycle to Increase the Substantial Real-world Impact of Research: Accelerating Innovations to Application. Med Care. 2019 Oct; 57 Suppl 10 Suppl 3:S206-S212. PMID: 31517789.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 10/1/2019
Benavidez G, Frakt A. Price Transparency in Health Care Has Been Disappointing, but It Doesn't Have to Be. JAMA. 2019 Oct 01; 322(13):1243-1244. PMID: 31573626.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 7/16/2019
Khullar D, Frakt AB, Burke LG. Advancing the Academic Medical Center Value Debate: Are Teaching Hospitals Worth It? JAMA. 2019 Jul 16; 322(3):205-206. PMID: 31206128.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 6/18/2019
Frakt AB. The Rural Hospital Problem. JAMA. 2019 Jun 18; 321(23):2271-2272. PMID: 31211334.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 6/5/2019
Burke LG, Khullar D, Zheng J, Frakt AB, Orav EJ, Jha AK. Comparison of Costs of Care for Medicare Patients Hospitalized in Teaching and Nonteaching Hospitals. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 06 05; 2(6):e195229. PMID: 31173121.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 6/1/2019
Yuan Y, Thomas KS, Frakt AB, Pizer SD, Garrido MM. Users Of Veteran-Directed Care And Other Purchased Care Have Similar Hospital Use And Costs Over Time. Health Aff (Millwood). 2019 06; 38(6):1037-1045. PMID: 31158026.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 5/1/2019
Adelberg M, Frakt A, Polsky D, Strollo MK. Improving provider directory accuracy: can machine-readable directories help? Am J Manag Care. 2019 05; 25(5):241-245. PMID: 31120718.
Read at: PubMed
View 129 more publications:View full profile at BUMC
News & In the Media
- Published on February 19, 2020
- Published on February 18, 2020
- Published on February 6, 2020
- Published on February 5, 2020
- Published on February 3, 2020
- Published on January 16, 2020
- Published on January 16, 2020
- Published on January 10, 2020
- Published on January 10, 2020
- Published on January 10, 2020