Preethi Rao is a senior health economist at RAND. Her research focuses on policy issues related to the Affordable Care Act, health insurance markets, costs of prescription drugs, access to health care, and quality measurement in health care. She has used simulation modeling to assess state policies (such as expanding Medicaid to the undocumented immigrant population, the impacts of reinsurance, and introducing a public option plan), the effects of potential changes to the Affordable Care Act (such as subsidy expansions), and the introduction of new payment models in Medicaid. She has also conducted evaluations of state Section 1332 reinsurance waivers. She has experience with evaluation and implementation of quality measurement programs through work on the CAHPS for MIPS survey. She has worked on analyses of prescription drug usage using drug sales data from IQVIA and Medicare encounter data and Part D event data, and is currently involved in work to validate the RxDC dataset as well as work to evaluate the Medicare Part D Senior Savings Model (PDSS). She has used many large datasets in her work, including Medicare and Medicaid claims data, census data, data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and Current Population Survey, and data from state all-payer claims databases. Rao earned her Ph.D. in health economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ph.D. in health economics, University of Pennsylvania
