Hospital price markup and outcomes of major elective operations

JAMA Surgery

2025-09-24

(Press-News.org) About The Study: This cross-sectional study found that considerable variation in price markup exists across hospitals and that high-markup hospitals demonstrated both lower quality and value of care. These findings underscore that high-markup hospitals represent a key initial target for national policy efforts targeting pricing regulation, transparency, and quality improvement.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Peyman Benharash, MD, email pbenharash@mednet.ucla.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2025.3647)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

# # #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/10.1001/jamasurg.2025.3647?guestAccessKey=6b8c55f5-7996-49ee-9a2b-386b6af37c42&utm_source=for_the_media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=092425

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Early changes during brain development may hold the key to autism and schizophrenia

2025-09-24

Researchers at the University of Exeter have created a detailed temporal map of chemical changes to DNA through development and aging of the human brain, offering new insights into how conditions such as autism and schizophrenia may arise. The team studied epigenetic changes - chemical tags on our DNA that control how genes are switched on or off. These changes are crucial in regulating the expression of genes, guiding brain cells to develop and specialise correctly. One important mechanism, called DNA methylation, ...

Genetic screening technique could enhance CAR-T therapies for multiple myeloma and other cancers

2025-09-24

Researchers from Mass General Brigham and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have identified genetic modifications that can improve the efficacy of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell treatment — an immunotherapy that uses modified patient T cells to target cancer. The study used CRISPR screening to pinpoint genes that influenced T cell function and survival in culture and in a preclinical model of multiple myeloma. Their results and technique, published in Nature, could lead to T cell-based immunotherapies for cancer. “We ...

Researchers at the Josep Carreras Institute describe for the first time the delicate balance of longevity

2025-09-24

Recent studies suggest that the steady rise in life expectancy observed over the past 200 years has now stagnated. Data indicate that a limit has been reached, and that medical and healthcare advances no longer affect longevity in developed countries as they did in previous decades. Today, ageing itself, rather than disease, is the real frontier of human longevity. But what exactly is ageing? And can it be addressed in the same way as a disease? A team led by Dr Manel Esteller, Head of the Cancer Epigenetics group at the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, has just ...

Majority of US children enroll in Medicaid, many face coverage gaps by age 18

2025-09-24

Embargoed for release: Wednesday, September 24, 2025, 11:00 AM ET Key points: By their 18th birthday, 61% of U.S. children have relied on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and 42% have experienced gaps in coverage, according to estimates from a microsimulation model. Disruptions to insurance coverage were more common among children covered by Medicaid or CHIP at birth in states that did not expand their Medicaid adult programs. States that set the most restrictive income eligibility thresholds for children under Medicaid and CHIP saw the highest share of coverage disruptions. The ...

“High-markup” hospitals are overwhelmingly for-profit, located in large metropolitan areas and have the worst patient outcomes

2025-09-24

Hospitals with the widest difference between the cost of their services and what they charge patients and their insurance carriers are mostly for-profit, investor owned and located in large metropolitan areas. They also have significantly worse patient outcomes compared with lower-cost hospitals, new UCLA research finds. These “high-markup hospitals” (HMH), which comprised about 10% of the total the researchers examined, charged up to 17 times the true cost of care. By contrast, markups at other hospitals were an average of three times the cost of care. The findings will be published September ...

Ancient Plant, new insights: IPK research team reveals the mosaic origin of barley

2025-09-24

The research team conducted an in-depth study of the evolution and domestication of barley (Hordeum vulgare). They focused on so-called haplotypes - sections of DNA that are inherited together and act like genetic “building blocks.” To trace barley’s history, the scientists analysed the genetic material of 682 barley accessions from the IPK genebank and 23 archaeological barley finds, including ancient charred grains up to 6,000 years old. The team specifically studied 380 wild barley samples from regions across western and central Asia, and compared them with 302 samples ...

Researchers identify four-step process of mammalian jaw joint evolution

2025-09-24

During the course of evolution, the mammalian cranio-mandibular secondary joint—formed by the dentary condyle and the squamosal glenoid fossa, which replaced the reptilian articular–quadrate joint—represents an innovative structure in vertebrate evolution. By CT-scanning two classic fossils, Chinese researchers found previously unknown jaw joints and proposed a clear, four-step sequence showing how chewing and hearing functions were gradually split between jaw and ear. The research was led by Prof. MAO Fangyuan from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of ...

Quantum computer chips clear major manufacturing hurdle

2025-09-24

UNSW Sydney nano-tech startup Diraq has shown its quantum chips aren’t just lab-perfect prototypes – they also hold up in real-world production, maintaining the 99% accuracy needed to make quantum computers viable. Diraq, a pioneer of silicon-based quantum computing, achieved this feat by teaming up with European nanoelectronics institute Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec). Together they demonstrated the chips worked just as reliably coming off a semiconductor chip fabrication line as they do in the experimental conditions of a research ...

Robots map chemical reaction “hyperspaces” to unlock complex networks

2025-09-24

Traditionally, chemical reactions have been described as one-line “equations” in which substrates, say A and B, convert purposefully but rigidly into a desired product, say C. Naturally, it has been recognized that byproducts may also form, but these have been generally considered undesirable and unproductive. The current research demonstrates that this view is very fragmentary and insufficient: in reality, chemical reactions – even those studied since the 19th century – are complex reactivity networks that, depending on the concentrations of ...

Securing AI scientists with agents

2025-09-24

A team of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China and the Zhongguancun Institute of Artificial Intelligence has developed SciGuard, an agent-based safeguard designed to control the misuse risks of AI in chemical science. By combining large language models with principles and guidelines, external knowledge databases, relevant laws and regulations, and scientific tools and models, SciGuard ensures that AI systems remain both powerful and safe, achieving state-of-the-art defense against malicious use ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Linearizing tactile sensing: A soft 3D lattice sensor for accurate human-machine interactions

Nearly half of Australian adults experienced childhood trauma, increasing mental illness risk by 50 percent

HKUMed finds depression doubles mortality rates and increases suicide risk 10-fold; timely treatment can reduce risk by up to 30%

ECMWF and European Partners win prestigious HPCwire Award for "Best Use Of AI Methods for Augmenting HPC Applications” – for AI innovation in weather and climate