Anemia is common in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD). Though erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) have been strongly endorsed in guidelines, it is of particular financial interest. Recently, the reimbursement of ESAs in non-dialytic patients was started by the Korean National Health Insurance System. Thus, we investigated the impact of the reimbursement of ESAs on the ane...

The growth of molecular imaging heightens the promise of clinical nuclear medicine as a tool for individualization of patient care and for improvement of health-care outcomes. Together with greater use of integrated structure-function imaging, clinical nuclear medicine reaches beyond traditional specialty borders into diagnostic radiology and oncology. Yet, there are concerns about the future o...

Legal and medical professions are intertwined in an intimate and complex relationship. Medical malpractice arguably constitutes the biggest point of contention between the two professions. While a significant proportion of medical malpractice complaints are not frivolous and are based on appropriate research and screening criteria, most of these complaints are ultimately settled or taken to tri...

Acupuncture was introduced to Australia as early as in the 1880s, and is a form of complementary and alternative medicine in this country. In the past 2 decades since the 1990s, acupuncture has experienced a rapid growth. Today, nearly 4000 acupuncturists are registered with the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia. "Acupuncturist," "Oriental medicine practitioner," and "Chinese medicine practit...

As we discussed in Chapter 1, the federal government gives each state flexibility in establishing its own Medicaid reimbursement methods and rates for nursing home services. While the five states examined all use prospective, facility-specific reimbursement methods, the way each state has designed its reimbursement system varies significantly. The combination of historical, facilityspecific cos...

This article examines the interaction between the demand for deductible insurance and the demand for the asset that can be insured. A model where the decision-maker can choose both the insurance level and the amount of the risky asset to hold in the portfolio is used. Allowing simultaneous determination of the demand for an asset and the level of the deductible alters the comparative statics of...

Standard models of political competition do not differentiate between parties and the candidates selected by those parties, nor between electoral competition and competition between parties for support and influence among the public. This paper introduces a framework that distinguishes between parties and their candidates, creating roles for both the importance of a party’s power (size) and of ...

Between 1978 and 1993, the number of persons receiving disability benefits under either the Supplemental Security Income program or the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program increased more than 43 percent--from 4.7 million to 6.7 million. In 1993, 4.08 percent of the U.S. resident population aged 18-64 were receiving a disability benefit under one or both of the programs, compare...

Evidence-based medicine provides proof of efficacy (“to help”) and defines the risk-benefit relationship (“do no harm”) for specific therapeutic intervention. Guidelines provide an algorithm by which evidence-based medicine is incorporated into clinical practice. The cornerstone of evidence-based medicine is the randomized controlled clinical trial. On the basis of carefully constructed and wel...

[This corrects the article on p. 118 in vol. 21, PMID: 25995964.].