BACKGROUND Reductions in smoking in Arizona and California have been shown to be associated with reduced per capita healthcare expenditures in these states compared to control populations in the rest of the US. This paper extends that analysis to all states and estimates changes in healthcare expenditure attributable to changes in aggregate measures of smoking behavior in all states. METHODS ...

This study estimates the annual numbers of eight work-related cancers, total losses of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), and lifetime healthcare expenditures that possibly could be saved by improving occupational health in Taiwan. Three databases were interlinked: the Taiwan Cancer Registry, the National Mortality Registry, and the National Health Insurance Research Database. Annual numbers ...

OBJECTIVES To compare antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence and persistence and total healthcare expenditures in Medicaid-insured patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) initiating preferred or nonpreferred first-line ART based on March 2012 HHS HIV treatment guidelines. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective observational study using Medicaid administrative healthcare claims from 15 states. ...

The paper is an ex post, critical contribution to the research conducted by the World Health Organisation on healthcare financing. The issue of national healthcare systems’ efficiency is addressed, through building a model of change in healthcare quality, in response to changes in healthcare financing, with the core hypothesis stating that the greater is the change in healthcare expenditures, t...

BACKGROUND Financial risk protection against the cost of unforeseen healthcare has gained global attention in recent years. Although Ghana implemented a nationwide health insurance scheme with a goal of reducing financial barriers to accessing healthcare and addressing impoverishing effects of out-of-pocket (OOP) healthcare payments, there is a paucity of knowledge on the extent of financial ca...

background provincial health accounts (pha) as a subset of national health accounts (nha) present financial information for health sectors. it leads to a logical decision making for policy-makers in order to achieve health system goals, especially fair financial contribution (ffc). this study aimed to examine health accounts in kerman province.   methods the present analytical study was carried...

Background During the last two decades, most countries including developed and developing have experienced a rapid increase in health care expenditures in general, and hospital expenditures in particular. DRG-based reimbursement systems were introduced to control healthcare and hospital expenditure, increase activity levels and standardize care. This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical ...

BACKGROUND In 2003, British Columbia's PharmaCare programme implemented a drug reimbursement policy called Therapeutic Substitution, which required patients with acid-related diseases, primarily gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD), to make a medically unnecessary switch from their prescribed proton pump inhibitor (PPI) to the cheapest available brand name PPI (Pariet, rabeprazole sodium), ...

The chronic nature of many prescription drugs used by Medicare beneficiaries suggests that adverse selection could pose a problem in the market for stand-alone prescription drug plans that were created under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Using panel data on the Medicare population from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we find that prescription drug expenditures are less concentra...

BACKGROUND Health risks such as tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption and unhealthy body weight contribute to the development of chronic health problems. OBJECTIVE To estimate the associations of tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption and obesity with healthcare expenditure and chronic diseases among South Africans on a comprehensive medical scheme. METHODS We performed a cross-sec...