In this paper we consider a utility-maximization model for health care. On the basis of the equilibrium conditions derived for patients and the providers of the medical service, we evaluate the importance of cost-sharing between the patients and the third party and provide an explanation for the rising medical expenditures. We effectively assume that some form of third-party payer is always inv...

Introduction: Medical tourism is a rapidly growing industry that has provided special opportunities to gain competitive advantage over international health organizations. This study aimed to investigate the quality requirements based on Joint Commission International (JCI) for medical tourism in selected hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Methods:...

Long-term care (LTC) must be carefully delineated when expenditures are compared across countries because how LTC services are defined and delivered differ in each country. LTC’s objectives are to compensate for functional decline and mitigate the care burden of the family. Governments have tended to focus on the poor but Germany opted to make LTC universally available ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Although preventive dental visits are considered important for maintaining pediatric oral health, there is relatively little research showing that they reduce subsequent nonpreventive dental visits or costs. At least 1 study seemed to find that early preventive dental care is associated with more restorative and emergency visits. Previous studies are limited by their i...

The balanced scorecard (BSC) is a strategic planning and management system that has wide applications in manufacturing and service industries. The main goals of BSC are to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals. In this study, performance measurement is d...