USC Schaeffer Researcher Named a STAT 2024 Wunderkind

Erin L. Duffy, a research scientist at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, today was named a STAT 2024 Wunderkind, an annual honor recognizing promising early-career researchers.

Duffy, recently appointed the director of research training at the Schaeffer Center, was recognized by STAT as a leading expert on medical debt—which affects 2 in 5 adults—and surprise medical bills.

STAT received hundreds of nominations for this year’s Wunderkind class celebrating “the next generation of scientific superstars” in North America. Duffy is among 27 researchers and doctors selected by the prominent medical and science news website.

Duffy’s research has focused on healthcare affordability issues, as well as cost drivers and market failures in the healthcare system. In a study published this summer, she found that most patients who challenged a problematic medical bill received some form of financial relief. In a recent “secret shopper” study she co-authored, she found underinsured patients often had difficulty obtaining information from hospitals about financial assistance options before a planned procedure.

“USC and the health policy community already knew Dr. Duffy was a star. Now everyone knows it,” said Schaeffer Center Co-Director Dana Goldman.

Duffy joined the Schaeffer Center as a postdoctoral research scholar in 2019 after earning a PhD in policy analysis from Pardee RAND Graduate School. Some of her earliest research focused on surprise medical bills, in which insured patients receive large bills for care they unknowingly received outside of their insurer’s network. Research from Duffy and Schaeffer Center colleagues helped inform a 2020 law protecting patients from surprise medical bills, and she has continued to study issues arising from the system Congress created to settle payment disputes between providers and insurers.

Duffy told STAT she’s grateful to conduct research on issues that affect people’s daily lives and leads to reform.

“That gives me a lot of hope,” she said.