Dr. Trivedi is a general internist and health services researcher whose research focuses on two key areas: (1) assessing quality of care and racial/ethnic health care disparities among chronically-ill adults in managed care and safety net settings; and (2) evaluating the impact of Medicare and Medicaid policies on the use of effective health services and clinical outcomes. In research using national data from Medicare managed care plans, acute care hospitals and the VA health care system, he has demonstrated that broadly targeted quality improvement successfully narrowed gaps in care, but racial/ethnic gaps on important outcomes remained substantial and unchanged. These studies, cited in US Congressional testimony and an Institute of Medicine report, provide support for reporting clinical performance stratified by race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Further, they provide strong evidence of the need for health care organizations to adopt targeted efforts to eliminate racial disparities in health outcomes, particularly among minority populations with diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.

Dr. Trivedi has also examined the impact of copayments on health outcomes and use of important preventive health services for elderly Medicare beneficiaries. He has published innovative and influential studies on the impact of Medicare cost-sharing for mammography and the effects of insurance parity on mental health services. A study of ambulatory copayments in the elderly reported that increasing ambulatory cost-sharing in the Medicare population may be a self-defeating cost-containment strategy, since the reductions in outpatient visits were offset by substantial increases in hospitalizations. This work has been cited in US Congressional testimony to the US House Ways and Means Health subcommittee and informed a key provision of the Affordable Care Act that eliminated cost-sharing for recommended preventive services.