All research programs

Research Program

Health Care Payments & Financial Accountability

Overview

I study health care payment and billing rules, industry financial relationships, and legal accountability for public spending. This work includes research on Open Payments and Medicare payment and billing policy, as well as broader False Claims Act scholarship.

Selected Scholarship

A Constitutional Accounting of the False Claims Act

Mackenzi Barrett, Benjamin J. McMichael, and W. Kip Viscusi

Forthcoming Vanderbilt Law Review (2026).

Nurse Practitioner Entrepreneurs—An Untapped Primary Care Lifeline

Monica O’Reilly-Jacob, Betty Rambur, Benjamin J. McMichael, and Jennifer Perloff

JAMA Health Forum, 7(1): e256200 (2026).

A Constitutional False Claims Act

Benjamin J. McMichael, Mackenzi Barrett, and W. Kip Viscusi

Washington University Law Review, 102(3): 677–750 (2025).

Maximizing the Potential Value of the Nursing Workforce

Sharon Pappas, William Brosius, Rose Hayes, Matthew Lawrence, Benjamin J. McMichael, Deborah Zimmermann, and Linda McCauley

Nursing Outlook, 72(1): 102016 (2024).

The Economic Context of Nursing Practice in the United States

Benjamin J. McMichael and Joanne Spetz

Financial and Business Management for the Doctor of Nursing Practice (2022).

Association of State Legislation and Industry Compensation to Orthopaedic Residents: A 3-Year Review of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Open Payments Database

Bradley W. Wills, Adam M. Almaguer, Joseph X. Robin, Adam Archie, Benjamin J. McMichael, Gerald McGwin Jr., S. Elizabeth Ames, and Brent A. Ponce

Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 28(22): e1020–e1028 (2020).

Open Payments Reporting of Industry Compensation for Orthopedic Residents

Adam M. Almaguer, Bradley W. Wills, Joseph X. Robin, Yvonne Chodaba, Alexandra M. Arguello, Benjamin J. McMichael, Gerald McGwin Jr., and Brent A. Ponce

Journal of Surgical Education, 77(6): 1632–1637 (2020).

The Integrity of MACRA May Be Undermined By “Incident To Billing” Coding

Peter Buerhaus, Jonathan Skinner, Benjamin J. McMichael, David Auerbach, Jennifer Perloff, Douglas Staiger, and Lucy Skinner

Health Affairs Forefront (2018).

Data, Code & Interactive Research

Approved public datasets, replication materials, figures, and interactive research may be collected here where available.