Risha Gidwani is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. She is also an associate adjunct professor at the UCLA School of Public Health where she teaches cost-effectiveness analysis.
Gidwani's work focuses on benefit design, value of care, and patient financial burden, using both econometric and cost-effectiveness analysis techniques. She has studied quality and costs of care, patient-reported outcomes including utility elicitation, racial/ethnic disparities, and value-based purchasing.
Gidwani has been principal investigator on multiple peer-reviewed studies evaluating the cost and quality of U.S. health care. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Health Affairs, JAMA Network Open, and Medical Care, among others. She is currently leading separate studies evaluating the impact of insurance benefit design on receipt of high-quality health care, investigating patient challenges with health insurance literacy, and evaluating how the COVID-19 pandemic affected hospital financial performance.
Prior to coming to RAND, she was a health economist at the VA Health Economics Resource Center (HERC), a core investigator at the VA Center for Innovation to Implementation (Ci2i), and a consulting assistant professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Gidwani received her Doctor of Public Health (Dr.P.H.) degree from the UCLA Department of Health Services.
Gidwani-Marszowski R, Asch SM, Mor V, Wagner T, Faricy-Anderson K, Illarmo SM, Hsin G, Patel M, Ramchandran K, Lorenz M, Needleman J., "Health System and Beneficiary Costs Associated with Intensive End-of-Life Medical Services.," JAMA Network Open, 2019
Gidwani R, Asch SM, Needleman J, Faricy-Anderson K, Boothryod DB, Illarmo S, Lorenz KA, Patel MI, Hsin G, Ramchandran K, Wagner TH., "Cost Trajectories in the Last Year of Life in Medicare-treated versus VA-treated Cancer Patients. ," Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 69(4), 2021
Gidwani-Marszowski R, Needleman J, Mor V, Wagner T, Faricy-Anderson K, Boothroyd D, Patel M, Ramchandran K, Murrell SM, Joyce V and Asch SM., "The Quality of End-of-Life Care is Higher in VA than in Medicare: An Evaluation of a Dually-Eligible Population," Health Affairs, 37(1), 2018
Gidwani-Marszowski R, Boothroyd D, Needleman J, Illarmo S, Asch SM., "Comorbidity Assessment is Uneven across VA and Medicare for the Same Patient: Implications for Risk-Adjustment.," Medical Care, 2020 (forthcoming)
Gidwani R and Bhattacharya J., "CMS Payment Reform and the Incidence of Hospital-Acquired Pulmonary Embolism or Deep Vein Thrombosis," Journal of General Internal Medicine, 30(5), 2015
Gidwani-Marszowski R, Kinosian B, Scott W, Phibbs C, Intrator O., "Hospice Care in Medicare Advantage versus Traditional Medicare Among Veterans: a Risk-Adjusted Analysis.," Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, (8), 2018
Gidwani R & Russell LB., "Estimating Transition Probabilities for Cost-Effectiveness Analyses: Guidance for Decision Modelers. ," Pharmacoeconomics, 38(11), 2020
Gidwani R, Khan ZM, Fenaux P, Beach CL & Pashos CL., "A cost-effectiveness analysis of using azacitidine vs. decitabine in treating patients with myelodysplastic syndromes.," Journal of Medical Economics. 2012, 15(1), 2012
