BACKGROUND Physicians are considered to be the most informed consumers in the use of medical services since they have more information about diseases or medical technology. However, although plenty of researchers have suggested that different medical seeking behavior exists among physicians, very few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate differences in medical utilization between...

BACKGROUND Responsiveness is an indicator by WHO to evaluate the performance of health systems on nonmedical expectations of consumers. This study measures the health system responsiveness and the factors affecting responsiveness in Iran health system. METHODS World Health Survey (WHS) questionnaire was used to collect data on a two-stage cluster sampling in 17th District of Tehran in 2003. O...

OBJECTIVE To examine whether community treatment orders for psychiatric patients reduce subsequent use of health services in comparison with control patients not placed on an order. DESIGN Epidemiological study with a before and after, two stage design of matching and multivariate analysis, controlling for sociodemographic variables, clinical features, and psychiatric history. SETTING All c...

BACKGROUND Afghanistan has made great strides in the coverage of health services across the country but coverage of key indicators remains low nationally and whether the poorest households are accessing these services is not well understood. METHODS We analyzed the Afghanistan Mortality Survey 2010 on utilization of inpatient and outpatient care, institutional delivery and antenatal care by w...

Prior Authorization Information Pre-service approval is required for all inpatient services for all products. See below for situations where prior authorization may be required or may not be required for outpatient services. Yes indicates that prior authorization is required. No indicates that prior authorization is not required. N/A indicates that this service is primarily performed in an inpa...

We studied Brazilian policies on mental health with respect to normative, supply and demand and financing aspects. We concluded that the sustainability of innovations in psychiatric reform depends on enhanced financing and integration with primary care community services, on the overall performance of SUS and the reduction of autonomous and exclusive services in primary care. There is high and ...