Luke Messac, MD, PhD: How Hospitals Charge Patients

I am an emergency physician and a historian. In my clinical work, I am an attending physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School. I received my BA from Harvard University, MD and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed residency training in emergency medicine at Brown/Rhode Island Hospital.

My research focuses on the history and political economy of health care and on diagnostics for emergency care in resource-limited settings. Recently, I have written about international opiate regulations, population control campaigns, feminist critiques of the GDP, and hepatitis C diagnostic technologies. 

My first book, No More to Spend (Oxford University Press, 2020), is a history of medical neglect and exploitation in Malawi. This book was named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title.

In my current research, I aim to use machine learning to improve early warning scores and diagnose emergent conditions in settings of clinical impoverishment.

I am also writing a history of medical debt collection in the United States. This book, Your Money or Your Life, is under contract with Oxford University Press and scheduled for publication in Fall 2023. It tells the story of how the collection of medical debt in the United States has transformed over the last several decades and how this impacts Americans’ lives. 

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