Zachary Dyckman, Ph.D.
- Health economics
- Litigation support
- Expert testimony
- Regulatory Analysis
- Provider payment systems
- Antitrust economics
- Managed care class certification issues
- Market analysis
- Pharmacy benefit and cost issues
- Health economic policy analysis
Zachary Dyckman, PhD, has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare policy research and consulting, primarily in the areas of physician payment systems, healthcare cost analysis, litigation support, pharmacy benefits, and managed care program evaluation. Dr. Dyckman’s clients have included federal and state government agencies with healthcare financing and regulatory responsibilities, national and state provider organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and more than thirty managed care and health insurance plans. Previously, Dr. Dyckman served as Executive Vice President of CHPS Consulting (Center for Health Policy Studies). He has also held senior level positions on the President’s Council on Wage and Price Stability, at the Department of Health Education and Welfare, and at Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Dyckman has evaluated and designed physician payment systems for numerous public and private health insurance programs. He recently completed a project for a consortium of Blue Cross Blue Shield plans to help them design and implement performance-based provider payment systems. This work included identifying process and outcomes criteria for measuring physician quality and cost-effectiveness that can be incorporated into an incentive payment system and developing effective physician communication and reporting strategies. He has also helped managed care plans develop global service payment approaches, under which a single payment is made for all professional and facility related services provided during a hospital admission.
His broad based healthcare research and consulting work had led to numerous litigation support and regulatory analysis assignments. Dr. Dyckman has testified at several major healthcare antitrust trials, at trials involving provider fee dispute and other healthcare issues, at state regulatory hearings, and before state legislative and Congressional committees. Over the past several years, he has directed damage estimation efforts involving analysis of large claims data sets for several provider fraud and abuse cases. He is currently working as an expert witness in several managed care class action and healthcare antitrust cases.
Dr. Dyckman has assisted employers, Medicare and Medicaid programs, and private insurers in the design and implementation of managed care programs. In 1999, he prepared a report for a business health coalition that evaluated managed care plan performance on cost, quality, and access in eight metropolitan areas. Dr. Dyckman directed a national provider survey for MedPAC, advisor to Congress on Medicare and Medicaid, regarding how Medicare payment rates compare to private health insurer payment rates. He also directed a study of clinical laboratory service costs and payment rates for the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, in support of their evaluation of Medicare payment policies for these services.
Dr. Dyckman has worked extensively on pharmacy benefit and cost issues. He has directed the evaluation and design of pharmacy benefit programs for several managed care plans and large employers. Cost projections for inclusion of prescription drug coverage under Medicare developed by Dr. Dyckman were cited by President Clinton during the healthcare reform debate. Other recently completed projects were a review of drug utilization, price, and cost trends for a major pharmaceutical company and an analysis of the cost impact of alternative Medicare prescription drug benefit designs.