Recent events showed that the federal health evidence system rested more on custom than on law. AcademyHealth's new Blueprint proposes ways to turn that custom into obligations that bind. blueprint.academyhealth.org

Today AcademyHealth released Modernizing Federal Health Evidence: A Blueprint, a nonpartisan plan to strengthen the institutions, data systems, workforce, and protections behind federal health evidence, built to hold across administrations. buff.ly/c777bmN

How do we build a federal health evidence system that holds up under any administration? AcademyHealth's new Blueprint is our nonpartisan, agency-by-agency attempt to answer that question. blueprint.academyhealth.org

Health services research helps address the things Americans dislike most about health care - costs, access, quality, and delays in care. The GAO has now confirmed that funding for that work was illegally withheld.
Read AcademyHealth's response: ahsituationreport.substack.com/p/gao-finds-...

The GAO has confirmed that AHRQ funding was illegally withheld.

$80 million in health services research authorized by Congress never reached researchers, disrupting studies focused on patient safety, access, quality, and affordability.

Read our response: buff.ly/k5xJhBS

Issue 6 of our Decisionmaker's Guide is out. My goal was the same as it has been with every issue: understand the evidence, explain why the estimates differ, and be clear about what we don't know. Read it and judge for yourself. academyhealth.org/publications...

A new single payer analysis projects 114,000 fewer deaths. But 51,311 of those are attributed to reversing 2025 coverage rollbacks, not to single payer itself. That's 45% of the headline estimate. Our guide breaks it down. academyhealth.org/publications...

In the final Pain Points episode, I dig into why medical bills ambush people: opaque pricing, messy billing, and a brutal appeals process. The video shows what’s hidden, what’s not said, and what to ask for. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ4r...

Why do single payer estimates differ so much? A big reason: assumptions about what hospitals and physicians would be paid when commercial insurance goes away. Yale and AAF make very different assumptions. academyhealth.org/publications...

New Pain Points video: what aren’t insurers telling you? Missing fees, surprise prior auths, fragmented bills. I break it down and provide simple steps to avoid shocking bills. Watch now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ4r...

I want to see fixes to prior authorization that actually help: standardized rules, policy change, "gold-carding" trusted providers, and better transparency so patients aren’t blindsided. Learn more about these solutions in this week’s Pain Points ep: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM0H...

After 17 months without a meeting, The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has new members. This is good news. But how will they evaluate evidence when the infrastructure has been damaged? Read more in our statement: academyhealth.org/blog/2026-09...

I’ve walked out of the clinic with a care plan, then later learned an insurer needed prior auth. Hours on hold, repeating my story, wondering whether treatment will happen. How can policy fix this? Watch this week’s Pain Points ep: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM0H...

Filling out redundant paperwork, waiting on hold forever, spending hours trying to understand what’s covered and what’s not. This should not be the burden of patients. But it is. Here’s why: www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjT...

I studied health services research to learn how to improve health systems. In this new Situation Report, Timothy Beebe explains what happens when programs that train the next generation of researchers lose that experience. ahsituationreport.substack.com/p/ahrq-train...

Looking forward to gathering with the D&I community this December at #DIScience26 to discuss how we can better leverage tools and evidence to improve clinical, community, and public health practice.

Register here: academyhealth.org/DIScience2026

A teenager with a heart defect saw specialist after specialist. None of them was in charge of his flu shot. He caught influenza & died. The trial testing how to fix that failure was canceled by the federal government in July.

My essay in @nytopinion www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/o...

When the AHRQ cancellations started, no one was giving the public a clear picture of what was being lost. My team built one.

This is research that makes care safer and more affordable. Americans deserve to know what's happening to it. Researchinterrupted.academyhealth.org

Health services research matters, even in infant feeding. A @jama.com pediatrics study and an editorial I co-authored show earlier allergen introduction is linked to lower food allergy rates. Read more here: www.medpagetoday.com/allergyimmun...