Economic impacts from floods have been increasing over recent decades, a fact often attributed to a changing climate. On the other hand, there is now a significant body of scientific scholarship all pointing towards increasing concentrations and values of assets as the principle cause of the increasing cost of natural disasters. This holds true for a variety of perils and across different juris...

BACKGROUND A public hospital in New Mexico required collection of 50% of estimated costs prior to elective surgeries for self-pay patients. This study assesses the impact of this policy on access to elective surgical procedures. METHODS Chi-square tests determined if there was a statistically significant difference between the number of self-pay and insured patient cancellations for financial...

This paper aims to estimate empirically the efficiency of a Swiss telemedicine service introduced in 2003. We used claims' data gathered by a major Swiss health insurer, over a period of 6 years and involving 160 000 insured adults. In Switzerland, health insurance is mandatory, but everyone has the option of choosing between a managed care plan and a fee-for-service plan. This paper focuses on...

BACKGROUND In 2003, Ghana introduced the national health insurance scheme (NHIS) to promote access to healthcare. This study determines consumer and provider factors which most influence the NHIS at a municipal health facility in Ghana. METHOD This is an analytical cross-sectional study at the Winneba Municipal Hospital (WHM) in Ghana between January-March 2010. A total of 170 insured and 175...

BACKGROUND Community-based health insurance has been associated with increased hospitalisation in low-income settings, but with limited analysis of the illnesses for which claims are submitted. A review of claims submitted to VimoSEWA, an inpatient insurance scheme in Gujarat, India, found that fever, diarrhoea and hysterectomy, the latter at a mean age of 37 years, were the leading reasons for...

BACKGROUND Medicare spending after age 65 years may be higher for previously uninsured adults if suboptimal care before this age leads to irreversible complications, persistently elevated clinical risks, or delay of costly elective procedures. OBJECTIVE To compare Medicare spending for previously uninsured and insured adults by using Medicare claims data. DESIGN Longitudinal survey data and...

The impact of information distribution on optimal risk-sharing between different parties has been an important field of research over the past 30 years. In the literature of insurance, however, the focus has remained essentially on one configuration: insurers (the principal) propose a contract to insured (the agent), but are unable to observe perfectly the risk of their insured who can. This as...

Uninsured individuals receive fewer health care services for at least three reasons: higher prices, responsibility for the entire bill, and potential provider reductions for concern of nonpayment. This study isolates differences in service levels between insured and uninsured individuals that are attributed to different effective prices; the uninsured pay the bill without a contribution from an...