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Dr. B. Rick Mayes
Dr. B. Rick Mayes
Professor of Health Policy
Chair, Department of Health Studies
Profile

Rick Mayes is a professor of health policy in the University of Richmond’s department of health studies. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral traineeship at the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health. He worked on Medicaid policy in the White House for George H.W. Bush and thereafter on health insurance and Medicare policy at the AARP during the “Clinton” health care reform effort. He is a graduate of the University of Richmond, and he has taught international public policy and global health on Semester at Sea.

His writings have appeared in: The New York Times; Health Affairs; the Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law; the Journal of the History of Medicine & Allied Sciences; the Journal of Policy History; the Journal of Health Law; the Journal of Health Care Law & Policy; the Harvard Review of Psychiatry; the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences; Health Economics, Policy and Law; the History of Psychiatry; Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology News; Health Law Review; Applied Health Economics & Health Policy; the Journal of Medicine, Health Care & Philosophy; Pharmacoepidemiology & Drug Safety; the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health; World Medical & Health Policy; and the Journal of Health Services Research & Policy

He has given talks and research presentations on health care policy, finance, delivery and organization to, among others: the Richmond Academy of Medicine, the Society of Urologic Nurses and Associates, the Virginia Association of Hematologists & Oncologists, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique (in France); the Yale University School of Medicine; Congress on Women’s Health; VCU’s Medical College of Virginia; the National Association of Personal Financial Planners; and the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine & Miller Center.

He is also the author of: UNIVERSAL COVERAGE: The Elusive Quest for National Health Insurance (University of Michigan Press), co-author of MEDICARE PROSPECTIVE PAYMENT AND THE SHAPING OF U.S. HEALTH CARE (Johns Hopkins University Press) with Robert Berenson, M.D., Senior Health Policy Fellow at the Urban Institute, and co-author of MEDICATING CHILDREN: ADHD and Pediatric Mental Health (Harvard University Press) with Catherine Bagwell and Jennifer Erkulwater.

Books Authored by Rick Mayes

His most enjoyable and rewarding professional experiences have involved taking groups of University of Richmond students to Peru, the Dominican Republic, Appalachia, and Acadia National Park in Maine on health care research and community service trips. He has been voted by students to give the university’s “Last Lecture”.

Grants and Fellowships

$21,000 Quest grant for public health research trip with students to Peru 2008

$21,000 Quest grant for public health research trip with students to Peru 2007

$3,700 PETE Summer teaching grant (w/Catherine Bagwell) 2005

$5,000 Summer Research Fellowship, University of Richmond 2003

$5,000 Summer Research Fellowship, University of Richmond 2004

$7,000 GIS "Geographic Information Systems" Training Grant 2002-2003

$10,000 grant, Center for Child & Youth Policy, School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley 2001-2002

Bankard Dissertation Fellowship (for field research abroad) 1998-1999

Awards

Voted by UR students to give “Last Lecture” 2013

ODK’s “Faculty Member of the Year at the University of Richmond”, student-voted (2003, 2013)

University of Richmond: Excellence in Student Advising- Professor of the Year (2012)

University of Richmond's "Distinguished Educator" award, faculty-voted (2007)

Richmond College’s “Faculty Member of the Year,” student-voted (2000, 2007)

Publications
Books

R. Mayes, C. Bagwell, J. Erkulwater, Medicating Children: ADHD and Pediatric Mental Health (Harvard University Press, 2009) 

R. Mayes, R. Berenson, M.D., Urban Institute, Medicare Prospective Payment and the Shaping of U.S. Health Care (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) 

R. Mayes, Universal Coverage: The Elusive Quest for National Health Insurance (University of Michigan Press, Series "Conversations in Medicine and Society," 2004)

Articles

(* denotes student/now alum in co-authorship)

Kislyakov, R. Mayes, “The Physics of Health Care: An Interpretation of the U.S. Health Care ‘System’ from the Perspective of Quantum Mechanics,” World Medical & Health Policy (Volume 11, No. 2, Summer 2019: 177-87)

R. Mayes, S. Shah*, “MACRA and Medicare’s Elusive Quest for Fairness and Value with Physician Payment Policy,” (Volume 11, No. 2, Summer 2018: 235-47)

Mayes, B. Paul*, “An Analysis of the Political and Legal Debates over Medicaid Expansion in Virginia,” Journal of Law & the Public Interest (Volume 18, No. 1, 2014: 23-37)

R. Mayes, B. Armistead*, “Chronic Disease, Prevention Policy, and the Future of Public Health and Primary Care,” Journal of Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy (Volume 16, No. 4, 2013: 691-7)

A. Frakt, R. Mayes “Beyond Capitalism," Health Affairs (Volume 31, No. 9, 2012: 1951-8) 

R. Mayes, T. Oliver, “Chronic Disease and the Shifting Focus of Public Health: Is Prevention Still a Political Lightweight?Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law (Volume 37, No. 2, 2012: 181-200) 

R. Mayes, S. McKenna, “Public Health and Primary Care: Struggling to ‘Win Friends and Influence People’,” Journal of Primary Care and Community Health (Volume 2, No. 1, 2011: 65-68)

R. Mayes, C. Bagwell, J. Erkulwater, “Medicating Children: The Enduring Controversy over ADHD and Stimulant Pharmacotherapy,” Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology News (Volume 13, No. 5, 2008: 1-5,9)

R. Mayes, J. Erkulwater, "Medicating Kids: Pediatric Mental Health Policy and the Tipping for ADHD & Stimulants,"  Journal of Policy History (Volume 20, No. 3, Summer 2008: 309-343) 

R. Mayes, C. Bagwell, J. Erkulwater, “ADHD and the Rise in Stimulant Use among Children,” Harvard Review of Psychiatry (Volume 16, No. 3, May/June 2008:151-166)

R. Mayes, A. Rafalovich, "Suffer the Restless Children: The Evolution of ADHD and Pediatric Stimulant Use,"  History of Psychiatry (Volume 18, No. 4, December 2007: 435-457) 

R. Mayes, "The Origins, Development and Passage of Medicare's Revolutionary Prospective Payment System," Journal of the History of Medicine & Allied Sciences (Vol. 62, No. 3, January 2007: 21-55) 

R. Mayes, "The Origins of and Momentum behind ‘Pay for Performance' Reimbursement," Health Law Review (Vol. 15, No. 2, December 2006: 17-22) 

R. Mayes, R. Hurley, "Pursuing Health Care Cost Containment in a Pluralistic Payer Environment," Journal of Health Economics, Policy & Law (Vol. 1, No. 3, Summer 2006: 237-261) 

R. Mayes, A. Horwitz, "DSM-III and the Revolution in the Classification of Mental Illness," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (Vol. 41, Summer 2005: 249-267) 

F. Bokhari, R. Mayes, R. Scheffler, "An Analysis of the Significant Variation in Psychostimulant Use Across the U.S.," Journal of Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety (Vol. 14, 2005: 267-275)

R. Mayes, J. Lee, "Medicare Payment Policy and the Controversy Over Hospital Cost Shifting," Journal of Applied Health Economics & Health Policy (Vol. 3, No. 3, 2004: 153-159) 

R. Mayes, "Causal Chains and Cost Shifting: How Medicare's Rescue Inadvertently Triggered the Managed Care Revolution," Journal of Policy History (Vol. 16, No. 2, April 2004: 144-174)

R. Mayes, "Universal Coverage and the American Health Care System in Crisis (Again)," Journal of Health Care Law & Policy (Vol. 7, No. 2, July 2004: 242-279)  

Gitterman, R. Greenwood M.D., K. Kocis M.D., R. Mayes, A. McKethan, “Did a Rising Tide Lift All Boats? The NIH Budget and the State of Pediatric Research Spending, 1998-2004,” Health Affairs (Vol. 23, 2004)

Lee, R. Berenson, R. Mayes, A. Gauthier, “Medicare Payment Policy: Does Cost Shifting Matter?" Health Affairs’ “Web Exclusive” (Vol. 22, No. 6, October 2003)

Chapters

Mayes, K. White, “Agenda Setting: What Rises to a Policymaker’s Attention” in N. Short, J. Milstead, eds., Health Policy and Politics: A Nurse’s Guide (Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2021, Chapter 3)

Mayes, K. White, “Agenda Setting: What Rises to a Policymaker’s Attention” in N. Short, J. Milstead, eds., Health Policy and Politics: A Nurse’s Guide (Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2021, Chapter 3)

Essays

Mayes, Review of Stephen P. Hinshaw and Richard M. Scheffler’s The ADHD Explosion: Myths, Medications, Money, and Today’s Push for Performance, in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law (2015)

R. Mayes, “Strategies for Health Care Cost Containment” in Guide to U.S. Health and Health Care Policy, edited by Thomas R. Oliver, 227-39. Thousand Oaks: CQ Press, 2014.

R. Mayes, “Moving (Realistically) from Volume-Based to Value-Based Health Care Payment: Starting with Medicare Payment Policy,” Journal of Health Services Research & Policy (Volume 16, No. 4, 2011) (abstract)

R. Mayes, “What Medicare Services to Cut Now: Rely on Hospice,” New York Times (June 1, 2011) 

Reviews

Mayes, Review of Paul Starr’s Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle over Health Care Reform and Stuart Altman and David Shactman’s Power, Politics and Universal Health Care, JHPPL (Volume 38, No. 1, 2013: 200-207)

R. Mayes, “Review of Daniel M. Fox’s The Convergence of Science and Governance: Research, Health Policy and American States,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law. (Volume 35, No. 6, 2010: 1057-62)

Education
Ph.D., NIH Postdoc., University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D., University of Virginia
B.A., University of Richmond
Contact Information
108 Weinstein Hall
(804) 287-6404
(804) 287-6833 (Fax)
Areas of Expertise
Public Policy
Health Care Policy
Health Insurance
Mental Health Policy
Medicare Policy