Samuel Valdez, PhD

Samuel Valdez is a post-doctoral fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center and the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests focus on health care provider market structure, the price, quality, and network determination in provider markets, and the economics of physician treatment and referral decisions.

Valdez received his PhD in economics from the University of California, Irvine and his bachelor’s in mathematics/economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Recent Work

Substantial Growth in Medicare Advantage and Implications for Reform

Between 2006 and 2022, traditional Medicare enrollment declined by 3% while adjusted Medicare Advantage enrollment increased by 337%.

Categorized in Research Journal Articles
Private Equity Investment as a Divining Rod for Market Failure: Policy Responses to Harmful Physician Practice Acquisitions

It is unclear whether private equity investment is itself a problem or whether, in the absence of private equity, other sources of capital—such as public equity, venture capital, health systems, and insurers—would similarly exploit existing market failures and legal loopholes in the healthcare system.

Categorized in Research USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy White Paper
Revisiting Early Structural Findings of Asymmetric Information’s Non-Existence in Health Insurance

AHRQ Postdoctoral Research Fellow revisits an early structural model that tests for asymmetric information in health insurance.

Categorized in Research Journal Articles
Do Medicare’s Facility Fees Incentivize Hospitals to Vertically Integrate with Oncologists?

A new paper examining whether or not hospitals strategically choose to vertically integrate with clinical oncologists in order to capture facility fees, a commonly cited reason for increased consolidation in the healthcare market.

Categorized in Research Journal Articles
Assessing the Quality of SK&A’s Office-Based Physician Database for Identifying Oncologists

Schaeffer experts assess the quality of one of the most commonly used commercial databases, SK&A’s office-based physician database.

Categorized in Research Journal Articles

Samuel Valdez, PhD's Bio

Recent Work

Substantial Growth in Medicare Advantage and Implications for Reform

Private Equity Investment as a Divining Rod for Market Failure: Policy Responses to Harmful Physician Practice Acquisitions

Revisiting Early Structural Findings of Asymmetric Information’s Non-Existence in Health Insurance

Do Medicare’s Facility Fees Incentivize Hospitals to Vertically Integrate with Oncologists?

Assessing the Quality of SK&A’s Office-Based Physician Database for Identifying Oncologists