Current Research Interests:

Dr. Bach's main research interests cover healthcare policy, particularly as relates to Medicare, racial disparities in cancer care quality, and lung cancer epidemiology. His research examining quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries has demonstrated that blacks do not receive as high quality care as whites when diagnosed with lung cancer, and that the aptitude and resources of primary care physicians who treat blacks are inferior, when compared to primary care physicians who primarily treat whites. In 2007 he was the senior author on a study demonstrating that care in Medicare is highly fragmented, with the average beneficiary seeing multiple primary care physicians and specialists. His work in lung cancer epidemiology has focused on the development and utilization of lung cancer prediction models that can be used to determine what lung cancer events populations of elderly smokers will experience over a period of time. The models were recently used to determine that CT screening for lung cancer does not reduce the mortality risk for smokers, but does increase overdiagnosis. He is funded by grants from the National Institute of Aging and philanthropic sources. He formerly served a Senior Adviser to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He serves on several national committees, including the Institute of Medicine's National Cancer Policy Forum, and the Committee on Performance Measurement of the National Committee on Quality Assurance. Along with publishing in the medical literature, his opinion pieces have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and NPR's Marketplace.

Selected Publications:

1. Bach PB. Limits on Medicare's ability to control rising spending on cancer drugs. N Engl J Med. 2009 Feb 5;360(6):626-33.

2. Bach PB, Jett JR, Pastorino U, Tockman MS, Swensen SJ, Begg CB. Computed tomography screening and lung cancer outcomes. JAMA. 2007; 297:953-61.

3. Bach PB, McClellan MB. The first months of the prescription-drug benefit--a CMS update. N Engl J Med. 2006; 354:2312-4.

4. Bach PB, Pham HH, Schrag D, Tate RC, Hargraves JL. Primary care physicians who treat blacks and whites. N Engl J Med. 2004; 351:575-84.

5. Bach PB, Kattan MW, Thornquist MD, Kris MG, Tate RC, Barnett MJ, Hsieh LJ, Begg CB. Variations in lung cancer risk among smokers. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2003; 95:470-8.

6. Bach PB, Schrag D, Brawley OW, Galaznik A, Yakren S, Begg CB. Survival of blacks and whites after a cancer diagnosis. JAMA. 2002; 287:2106-13.

7. Bach PB, Cramer LD, Schrag D, Downey RJ, Gelfand SE, Begg CB. The influence of hospital volume on survival after resection for lung cancer. N Engl J Med. 2001; 345:181-8.

8. Bach PB, Cramer LD, Warren JL, Begg CB. Racial differences in the treatment of early-stage lung cancer. N Engl J Med. 1999; 341:1198-205.