CHIBE Q&A with Dr. Stephen Parente

Learn more about one of our center’s newest external advisory board members Stephen Parente, PhD, MPH, MS, in our CHIBE Q&A.

What are you working on right now? 

I’m working on price transparency. I’m trying to get the new data released by insurers into the hands of consumers and then evaluate its intended impact of reducing health care costs.

What are you most proud of in your career?

I was the architect of the Provider Relief Fund during COVID in 2020, which provided immediate financial relief to hospitals and providers through public/private partnership.

Thinking back to your time in Washington, how receptive do you think policymakers are to behavioral economics insights? Do you have any advice for CHIBE investigators looking to work more with policymakers?

Two points: a) What are their immediate points of pain, and where is the pressure coming from? b) Does your research truly inform a disruptive innovation? If not, could it?

Dr. Parente is the Minnesota Insurance Industry Chair of Health Finance in Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and Associate Dean of the Carlson Global Institute. He is the CEO of MyMedVita, Inc a medical price transparency smartphone application as well as the Managing Principal of Health Systems Innovation Network, LLC. In Washington DC, he served in government as Chief Economist for Health Policy on the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House, Senior Adviser to the Secretary for Health Economics in the Department of Health and Human Services and adviser to the Congressional Budget Office. He also served as Chair of the Health Care Cost Institute, health policy advisor for the McCain 2008 and Legislative Fellow in the office of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV).