Jean M. Mitchell is a PhD economist and professor of public policy at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. Her areas of expertise are health economics, health services research and applied econometrics.

Dr. Mitchell has published more than 50 peer reviewed articles in leading economics, health services research and medical journals. Her published research includes the following topics: the effects of physician self-referral arrangements on utilization and costs of health services; the effects of managed care insurance on access to care for specific medical procedures; the effects of managed care on physicians’ practice styles, hours of work, earnings and satisfaction with medicine as a career; physicians’ responses to Medicare fee reductions; the effects of physical and mental health on labor supply and earnings; the effects of a Medicaid waiver for persons with AIDS on monthly expenditures, use of services and survival, access to care; and use of services for children with special healthcare needs enrolled in managed care versus fee-for-service. In addition, Dr. Mitchell has served as principal researcher or co-principal researcher of several research studies funded by federal grants.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Mitchell served as the principal researcher of a large scale study to evaluate the impact of physician self-referral arrangements on use of services, costs, access and quality of healthcare in Florida. This study was mandated and funded by the Florida legislature. Her findings, which were published in leading peer review journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, had a major impact on public policy. In response to her study, Congress passed a federal law which prohibits physicians from referring Medicare and Medicaid patients to healthcare facilities in which the physician has an ownership interest. At least 24 states enacted similar legislation that prohibits the practice of physician self-referral for both public and privately insured patients based on the results of Mitchell’s and other research on physician self-referral arrangements. Dr. Mitchell is continuing her work on physician self-referral arrangements by evaluating loopholes in the federal and state laws. Her ongoing work includes an examination of the effects of physician-owned limited service hospitals.