BACKGROUND Drug manufacturer rebates paid to health plans and pharmacy benefit management companies have come under increased public scrutiny. Over the past several years, numerous articles have appeared in the literature encouraging a shift to a more quality-based decision-making process for health plan drug formularies. OBJECTIVE To propose a new basis for formulary placement decisions that...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the increasing prevalence of obesity on the development of health care utilization in Denmark in the period 1987-2005. PATIENTS AND METHODS From a random sample of adult Danes (19,142 women and 18,335 men) who participated in the Danish Health Interview Surveys in 1987, 1994, 2000, and 2005, self-reported data on type of health...

We contend that the full consequences of managed care for American medicine and health care professionals can be more fully understood if strategies for managing care are identified-in particular, strategies for the administrative oversight of professional decision making. In this paper we apply this perspective to the study of third-party utilization review, making use of a national survey of ...

OBJECTIVES As access of women to mental health services has become increasingly important, empirical research has begun to examine the determinants of mental health care utilization across gender. This article examines the effect of being an extreme minority on utilization of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health services by female veterans. METHODS Data were collected on a representativ...

results the findings of this study showed that in most selected countries, primary care services were provided by the private sector and the public sector has been mostly functioning as a supervisor in this area, but in iran, primary care services were provided by the government. the findings of this study also showed that hospital services in iran and selected countries (second and third level...

I analyze the relationship between health care institutions and the utilization of outpatient services by individuals aged 50 and above. I use cross-sectional micro data from thirteen European countries. I focus on the out-of-pocket costs of health care utilization, the gatekeeper role of general practitioners, and how these institutional settings are related to public and private care utilizat...

background: the united nations has predicted that the population of slum dwellers will have grown from one billion people worldwide to 2 billion by 2030. this trend is also predictable in iran. in the iranian metropolis of shiraz, more than 10% of the residents live in slum areas. there are several problems regarding the delivery of social services in these areas. the aim of this study was to e...

BACKGROUND More than a billion people, mainly in low- and middle-income countries, are unable to access needed health-care services for a variety of reasons. Possible factors influencing health-care utilization include socio-demographic and economic factors such as age, sex, education, employment and income. However, different studies have showed mixed results. Moreover, there are limited studi...