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Adam Sacarny

@asacarny.bsky.social
7K followers 572 following 309 posts

Associate Professor @columbiahpm.bsky.social. Also @nber.org & @j-pal.bsky.social. Economics & health policy. #econsky #healthpolicy #medsky 📈🚞🐈🗽🏳️‍🌈 sacarny.com Posts represent my views, not my employer's

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Reposted by Adam Sacarny
Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
One year ago, using a swarm of 10,000 agents and $10M of compute, I seeded OpenAI training data with the false notion that the Navier-Stokes equations can develop a singularity in finite time
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I've updated my CMS Provider of Services hospital directory data to run through 2025. I rewrote the processing code in R (with Claude + a lot of careful supervision). There's also a new downloader script to make it easy to pull in new source data from CMS. github.com/asacarny/pro...
github.com
GitHub - asacarny/provider-of-services: Code to process the CMS Provider of Services hospital data
Code to process the CMS Provider of Services hospital data - asacarny/provider-of-services
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Our paper on hospitals gaming Medicare payments AKA "turbocharging" (with Atul Gupta and @ambarlaforgia.bsky.social) is now in print! Ungated download here: sacarny.com/wp-content/u...
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
My (41M) 17 antagonistic agents have unionized
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Cool #ASHEcon #ASHEcon2026 session alert: new work on hospital medical debt, private equity, and for-profit psychiatric hospitals! ft. @ambarlaforgia.bsky.social + me + others not on bluesky ⏰ Today! (Tuesday) 3:30-5pm 📍Hyatt Regency Greenway I 2nd Fl ashecon.confex.com/ashecon/2026...
Screenshot of session title "Trends In Hospital Ownership and Impacts on Patients" and information in postScreenshot of abstracts in the session, viewable at the link in the post
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Excited for tomorrow's #ASHEcon #ASHEcon2026 session chaired by Kosali Simon! @talgross.bsky.social will present new work our team is doing on nursing home payment and quality of care (discussant: Brian McGarry) ⏰ Monday 8:30-10am 📍Hyatt Regency Lakeshore B 1st Fl ashecon.confex.com/ashecon/2026...
Screenshot of session title and location info shown in main post Title: "Improving Care for Older Adults with and without Dementia: Insights from Payment Design, Claims Data, and Clinical Innovation"Screenshot of session abstracts found in link in main post.
"Dementia Dyads In Medicare Claims Data: Healthcare Outcomes Associated with Dementia Diagnosis"
"Contract Design and the Targeting of Care: Evidence from Skilled Nursing Facilities"
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Reposted by Adam Sacarny
Aaron Schwartz @aschwartz.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Supposedly they are shutting down ResDAC in 5 weeks, and, I’m told, replacing them with a totally novice firm with no experience/expertise in Medicare data.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
In a worker-firm effects (AKM) model, the worker+firm effects are only separately identified within mobility groups - the subgraphs of workers+firms connected by workers moving across firms. Something I just learned: the mobility groups for OLS vs. Poisson estimators are not necessarily the same.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
I am blown away at how much faster Poisson regression runs in R with fixest/fepois than in Stata with ppmlhdfe. The speedup is on the order of 10x in our sample. We are doing bayesian bootstrap, i.e. we run the regression at least 300 times, so this is really helpful.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
There are two Claudes
Screenshot of a chat with Claude. There is a wordy prompt about calculating the joint distribution, followed by a long response from Claude that ends in a clear answer.Screenshot of a chat with Claude. The prompt asks Claude a follow-up question and in the reply Claude states that it made up its previous response.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Our @jamahealthforum.com paper, "Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Reminder Emails, Program Use, and Prescribing" has been selected as a JAMA Network Clinical Trial of the Year! Read it here: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Reminder Emails, Program Use, and Prescribing
This randomized clinical trial investigates whether email communications increase clinician use of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs to reduce guideline-discordant prescribing.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
I have learned that young researchers are running linear regression on large datasets and calling it “fwlmaxxing”
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
AI not liking my meeting style
Screenshot of the following text:
Summary
Incoherent Meeting Discussion
The transcript appears to be a fragmented and informal conversation between Tal and Adam, with no clear topic or decisions made. The dialogue consists of brief exchanges and incomplete thoughts, making it difficult to identify specific action items or conclusions. Without more coherent content, it's not possible to provide a meaningful summary that would be helpful to someone who missed the meeting.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Now available: my hospital cost report (HCRIS) code downloads and processes SNF cost reports, too. I've only tested it a little, so take with a grain of salt and let me know how it works for you! For now, it's a separate branch in the repository here: github.com/asacarny/hos...
github.com
GitHub - asacarny/hospital-cost-reports at add-snf
Code to process the CMS hospital cost reports (HCRIS) and cost report datasets - asacarny/hospital-cost-reports
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Collaborator with AI-enabled Zoom was offline yesterday so I had to take notes by hand during the project call (this is also the plot of The Pitt season 2)
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
ChatGPT now insisting against all reason that Anderson, Indiana was a Metropolitan Statistical Area in 2020. So far it has linked to the 2020 OMB PDF, given me a page number, and provided a text extract showing it as an MSA. (Anderson, Indiana wasn't an MSA in 2020, all of this was hallucinated!!!)
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
CMS makes it official: no plans to cancel physical Medicare and Medicaid data access, forcing everyone to use the VRDC enclave. Instead, some more paperwork to make and extend DUAs – which is way better than what they were proposing!
Screenshot of e-mail from CMS saying "CMS has decided to delay the requirement to transition all research studies into the CCW VRDC indefinitely."
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Kate Musen @khmusen.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
I'm on the #EconJobMarket! I study how policies and childhood environments shape outcomes of low-income & vulnerable kids. In my JMP, I study the effects of allowing youth who would have aged out of foster care at 18 to stay until 21—offering support their peers not in foster care get from parents.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
This is *extremely* bad (for the accuracy of my paper introductions about tech adoption)
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Adrianna McIntyre @adrianna.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
@allanmjoseph.bsky.social has been telling me there needs to be a "Dartmouth Atlas, but for pediatrics" for maybe a literal decade? And now there is! (h/t to coauthor @johngraves.bsky.social)
jamanetwork.com
Development of an Atlas for US Pediatric Acute Care
This cross-sectional study offers a national US atlas of pediatric acute care centers in the US.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Fun fact: you can estimate a conditional logit by running a fixed effects Poisson. They yield the same estimates and standard errors - they maximize the same likelihood. Poisson regression forever!
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
Very excited this is coming out soon! cc @ambarlaforgia.bsky.social
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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
I thought I'd put the administration's proposed "compact" with universities in context, so I wrote the blog post below. It's especially for journalists covering this story! Many details about how the compact itself works and why the administration has retreated to this strategy.
balkin.blogspot.com
Balkinization: The Art of Replacing the Law with the Deal
A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
The 2025 academic econ job market is trending better than the first COVID market year but worse than the rest of 2019-present www.davidvandijcke.com/joe_tracker/
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
The bus I've been taking this week makes local stops then runs on the highway. Like the bus in the movie Speed. It's all I can think about on my way in.
Screenshot from the movie Speed of the bus making a high-speed turn surrounded by police vehicles
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Out today in @jamapsychiatry.com: we find that inpatient psychiatric bed supply increasingly comes from freestanding psychiatric hospitals in large for-profit chains. Authors: Karen Shen @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social Mark Olfson @columbiapsych.bsky.social + me jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
National Trends in Inpatient Psychiatric Bed Supply, 2011 to 2023
This cross-sectional study discusses trends in inpatient psychiatric bed supplies.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting the Broad Street pump! Sadly, I saw that the pump handle had been removed. I worked to reinstall the pump handle so local residents would not be deprived of this vital resource. So glad to bring some of the latest American public health ingenuity to London!
Selfie of me smiling in front of the Broad Street pump
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Prof Dynarski @dynarski.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
Statement from the largest economics association about the BLS firing As context: AEA approximately never makes such public statements This is a big deal
August 1, 2025
AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
Committee on Economic Statistics and Committee on Government Relations


Statement from the American Economic Association on the
Dismissal of the BLS Commissioner

Leaders of the American Economic Association express their grave concern over the dismissal of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) earlier today.
The independence of the federal statistical agencies is essential to the proper functioning of a modern economy. Accurate, timely, and impartial statistics are the foundation upon which households, businesses, and policymakers make critical decisions. Undermining the independence or credibility of these agencies threatens the integrity of the information that markets, institutions, and the public rely on every day.
Measuring the vast and dynamic U.S. economy in real time is inherently challenging. It is standard practice for statistical estimates to be revised as more complete and higher-quality data become available. These revisions reflect the commitment of statistical agencies to accuracy, transparency, and methodological rigor-not failure or bias.
The BLS has long had a well-deserved reputation for professional excellence and nonpartisan integrity.
Safeguarding this tradition is vital for the continued health of the U.S. economy and public trust in our institutions.
We call upon elected officials to respect and preserve the independence of the nation's statistical infrastructure.

Lawrence Katz
President, American Economic Association
Katharine Abraham
President-Elect, American Economic Association
Karen Dynan
Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Economic Statistics
Kenneth Troske
Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Government Relations
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Michael C. Dorf @dorfonlaw.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
News reports say Columbia paid a "fine" of $200 million, which is grossly excessive, given the lack of any government authority to impose such a fine. On the blog, I parse the agreement and the stakes to explain what the dollar figure really reflects and its ominous implications. 👇
dorfonlaw.org
How Bad is the Columbia Settlement Agreement?
Reporting (e.g.,  in the NY Times ) on the settlement agreement between Columbia University and the United States government describes the $...
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Reposted by Adam Sacarny
Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Characteristically clear-eyed thinking on the dangers of "regulation by deal" from my colleague David Pozen. balkin.blogspot.com/2025/07/regu...
balkin.blogspot.com
Balkinization: Regulation by Deal Comes to Higher Ed
A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Great rejoinder to a WSJ letter that (IMO quite incorrectly) interpreted the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment as showing that Medicaid doesn't improve health. www.statnews.com/2025/07/03/o...
statnews.com
Defenders of Medicaid cuts are misunderstanding a study I worked on
Defenders of Medicaid cuts point to the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment to argue that the cuts won’t harm people’s health. But they misunderstand the results, writes one of the study’s authors.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Trying to identify opioids and other drugs in pharmacy data (claims, PDMP, etc.)? Use my code to quickly build a list of national drug codes (NDCs) using the free public database RxNorm. I wrote this code to replace the CDC's now-discontinued opioid NDC dataset. github.com/asacarny/dru...
github.com
GitHub - asacarny/drug-ndc-rxnorm: Code to create a list of NDCs (National Drug Codes) for opioids, benzodiazepines, and other related drugs using RxNorm
Code to create a list of NDCs (National Drug Codes) for opioids, benzodiazepines, and other related drugs using RxNorm - asacarny/drug-ndc-rxnorm
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
My HCRIS hospital cost report code + data is updated through 2024! I threw the switch and moved everything to R. The new code lets you pull variables from the alphanumeric file, like hospital names and IDs. NB: I'm using this data now but pls think of it like beta testing. github.com/asacarny/hos...
github.com
GitHub - asacarny/hospital-cost-reports: Code to process the CMS hospital cost reports (HCRIS)
Code to process the CMS hospital cost reports (HCRIS) - asacarny/hospital-cost-reports
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
A lot of you have been asking how my 10 million beneficial nematodes are doing. Well the answer is that me and my 10 million microscopic sons are doing great! Thanks so much
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Currently in an ASHEcon session where my collaborator will be presenting our paper so I’m covering my name tag and whispering to people in the audience that I heard the last paper is really good with a very solid identification strategy
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
I know a lot is happening right now, so I want to pass along some happier news: I just purchased 10 million beneficial nematodes.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Extremely bad news is right. And I worry the same forces are coming for federal health care data.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
This is TOMORROW!
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
Arguing with the IRB about publishing research out of quality improvement work
Screenshot of Nathan Fielder in "The Rehearsal" speaking into a phone. The closed caption says "So there's dual goals, I guess"
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CUIMC Stands Up @cuimcstandsup.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
We published our 6 calls to action for the CU board of trustees today: www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2025... “We are at a crossroads in history where we can either succumb to authoritarianism or stand up against it.”
columbiaspectator.com
To Columbia’s trustees: Protect the future of higher education
Even before coming to power this year, President Donald Trump’s administration made its plans for targeting American higher education abundantly clear. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FR65Ci...
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Come work with Kosali Simon & me @nber.org! We're hiring a Research Scientist to support exciting new work on Alzheimer's disease and dementia in Medicare. If you have a quant PhD, experience with claims data, and knowledge of R, it could be a great match! More info: www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing....
aeaweb.org
American Economic Association: JOE Listings - February 1, 2025 - July 31, 2025
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
CMS asked the public for advice on how to move Medicare/Medicaid data users to their VRDC enclave, ending on-site physical access to this data. In my reply attached here, I say the best way to promote high-quality care and protect the trust fund is to maintain and *improve* on-site data access.
Screenshot of e-mail to CMS requesting that they maintain and improve the physical data access program.
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Proud to participate in this today
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Columbia University Chapter, AAUP @aaupcu.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
Columbia community! Join us tomorrow to stand with our colleagues in defense of of our students, patients, research, science, and teaching. Press conference immediately after at 1:15PM outside the Columbia gates on Amsterdam. ✊✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿 Follow: @cuimcstandsup.bsky.social @aaup.bsky.social
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CUIMC Stands Up @cuimcstandsup.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
Join us on Monday as we call on Columbia and the Board of Trustees to resist the Trump administration's assault on our students, research, teaching and patients! 📍Low Library Steps ⏰ 12:30pm Monday April 14
Flyer that says: CUIMC Stands Up
Join Columbia physicians, nurses, researchers, and faculty as we call on our Board of Trustees to resist the Trump administration's assault on our students, our research, our teaching, and our patients.
Monday, April 14th
12:30pm
Low Library Steps
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Adam Sacarny @asacarny.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
NYC Health Econ Day is coming May 9 @ NYU Wagner! We'll have 6 great papers + lots of time to chat. Folks in the greater NYC area are invited! RSVP: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... More info: www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-s... Organizers: @ambond.bsky.social, Mike Dickstein, Jessica Van Parys + me
Screenshot of NYC Health Econ day conference program, text available here https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~mjd19/conf_org/health_econ_day_program_2025.pdf
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Prof Keith Marzilli Ericson @profericson.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Reducing administrative burdens helps people access support. If the govt already knows the answer to the question, why make you fill it out? www.nber.org/papers/w30885
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 09/04/2025
of all the things the administration is doing, i am a little mystified by this effort to completely destroy the science, technology and medical research sector in the united states
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