Susan Ettner, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Medicine and Health Services 911 Broxton Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90095-1736 (310) 794-2289 Fax: (310) 794-0732 E-mail: SEttner@mednet.ucla.edu Dr. Ettner's School of Medicine website page

Biographical Information

Susan L. Ettner is Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research in the UCLA Department of Medicine and in the Department of Health Services in the UCLA School of Public Health. Dr. Ettner obtained her Ph.D. in Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991. She was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School in the Department of Health Care Policy prior to joining UCLA in 1999. Dr. Ettner was the 2001 recipient of the Alice S. Hersch New Investigator Award by the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy, given each year to the outstanding new health services researcher in the country. Dr. Ettner's research interests include mental health and substance abuse services, reciprocity in the relationship between health and labor market outcomes, insurance markets and managed care, chronic disability, post-acute and long-term care. She teaches an advanced research methods course for the doctoral students in the School of Public Health and is involved in a number of research projects, including a study of the cost-effectiveness of a randomized, integrated patient-provider intervention to prevent harmful and hazardous alcohol use in the elderly; an administrative data analysis of treatment patterns and their relationship to outcomes among managed behavioral health patients; a pilot study of provider financial incentives for improving the quality of depression care; an evaluation of the impact of the Medicare Part D benzodiazepine exclusion on managed care patients with anxiety diagnoses or a history of benzodiazepine use; and an assessment of predictors of health services and long-term care use among triply diagnosed HIV+ patients. Dr. Ettner is also a member of the Task Force and legislative analyst for the California Health Benefits Review Program, which provides independent analyses of the medical, financial, and public health impacts of proposed health insurance benefit mandates.

Selected Publications

Ettner SL. Do Elderly Medicaid Patients Experience Reduced Access to Nursing Home Care? Journal of Health Economics 1993; 12(3):259-280.

Ettner SL. New Evidence on the Relationship Between Income and Health. Journal of Health Economics 1996; 15(1): 67-86.

Ettner SL. Adverse Selection and the Purchase of MediGap Insurance by the Elderly. Journal of Health Economics 1997; 16(5):543-562.

Ettner SL, Frank R, Kessler R. The Impact of Psychiatric Disorder on Labor Market Outcomes. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 1997; 51(1):64-81.

Ettner SL. The Relationship Between the Continuity of Care and the Health Behaviors of Patients: Does Having a Usual Physician Make a Difference? Medical Care 1999; 37(6): 547-55.

Ettner SL, Frank RG, McGuire TG, Hermann RC. Risk Adjustment Alternatives in Paying for Behavioral Health Care under Medicaid. Health Services Research 2001;36(4):793.

Ettner SL, Hermann RC. The Role of Profit Status under Imperfect Information: Evidence from the Treatment Patterns of Elderly Medicare Beneficiaries Hospitalized for Psychiatric Diagnoses. Journal of Health Economics 2001;20:23-49.

Ettner SL, Grzywacz J. Socioeconomic Status and Health among Californians: An Examination of Multiple Pathways. American Journal of Public Health.2003;93(3):441-444.

Ettner SL, Huang D, Evans E, Rose Ash D, Hardy M, Jourabchi M, Hser YI. Benefit-cost in the California Treatment Outcome Project: Does Substance Abuse Treatment "Pay for Itself"? Health Services Research. 2006;41(1):192-213.

Ettner SL, Thompson TJ, Stevens MR, Mangione CM, Kim C, Steers WN, Goewey J, Brown AF, Chung RS, Narayan KMV and the TRIAD Study Group. Are Physician Reimbursement Strategies Associated With Processes of Care and Patient Satisfaction for Patients with Diabetes in Managed Care? Health Services Research. 2006 Aug;41(4 Pt 1):1221-41.