In a prior article in this journal, John Nyman argues that the effect on health care use and spending found in the RAND Health Insurance Experiment is an artifact of greater voluntary attrition in the cost-sharing plans relative to the free care plan. Specifically, he speculates that those in the cost-sharing plans, when faced with a hospitalization, withdrew. His argument is implausible becaus...

BACKGROUND Perioperative hypertension affects 80% of cardiac surgery patients and is associated with an increased risk of complications. OBJECTIVE To determine the relationship between perioperative blood pressure (BP) control and hospital costs for cardiac surgery in the United States (US) and estimate the potential cost reductions associated with effective therapies. METHODS The analysis ...

In this study, we introduce a social networks enabled coordination model for exploring the effect of network position of "patient," "physician," and "hospital" actors in a patient-centered care network that evolves during patient hospitalization period on the total cost of coordination. An actor is a node, which represents an entity such as individual and organization in a social network. In ou...

OBJECTIVES To estimate the cost-consequence of interventions to prevent hospitalizations for heart failure (HF) in people with type 2 diabetes. METHODS In HF events (63) from type 2 diabetes-related hospitalizations (N = 462) recorded in an Argentine hospital (March 2004-April 2005), we verified 1) the presence of one metabolic HF predictor (glycosylated hemoglobin [HbA1c] value) before hospi...

BACKGROUND Symptomatic or asymptomatic patients with significant carotid artery stenosis (range, 70% to 99%) generally undergo either carotid artery endarterectomy (CEA) or carotid artery stenting (CAS) to prevent stroke. In this study, we evaluated the cost effectiveness of these two treatment modalities. METHODS A total of 47 patients (mean age, 67.1±9.1 years; male, 87.2%) undergoing eithe...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES To evaluate the experience with laparoscopic nephrectomy in a large county hospital and perform a cost comparison between uncomplicated open and laparoscopic nephrectomy. METHODS Eleven consecutive patients who underwent an uncomplicated laparoscopic nephrectomy in a large county hospital were compared with 8 patients who underwent uncomplicated open nephrectomy duri...

PURPOSE To assess change in hospitalization and cost of care from 6 months pre- to 6 months post-initiation on any depot antipsychotic among schizophrenia patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS Using a large United States commercial claims and encounters database, patients younger than 65 years diagnosed with schizophrenia were identified. Patients initiated on a depot antipsychotic were studied in a...

PURPOSE To compare and assess the efficacy, safety and utility of hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS) with open surgery (OS) in total colectomy with ileorectal for colonic inertia. METHODS From January 2001 to February 2012, 56 patients diagnosed with colonic inertia who failed to respond to medical treatments underwent hand-assisted laparoscopic total colectomy with ileorectal anastomo...

BACKGROUND Antipsychotic monotherapy or polypharmacy (concurrent use of two or more antipsychotics) are used for treating patients with psychiatric disorders (PDs). Usually, antipsychotic monotherapy has a lower cost than polypharmacy. This study aimed to predict the cost of antipsychotic medications (AM) of psychiatric patients in Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS For this purpose, 790 patients wi...

Invasive candidiasis is a major nosocomial fungal disease in the United States associated with high rates of illness and death. We analyzed inpatient hospitalization records from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project to estimate incidence of invasive candidiasis-associated hospitalizations in the United States. We extracted data for 33 states for 2002-2012 by using codes from the Internat...