OBJECTIVES We estimated national and state-level potential medical care cost savings achievable through modest reductions in the prevalence of several diseases associated with the same lifestyle-related risk factors. METHODS Using Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component data (2003-2005), we estimated the effects on medical spending over time of reductions in the prevalence of dia...

Qatar, an oil-exporting country with a population of about 1.7 million, achieved the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the world in 2010. Total health expenditure as a percentage of GDP in 2010 in Qatar was 2.0%, with the government's share at 75% of the total health care budget. Hamad Medical Corporation hospitals and the independent public Qatar Primary Health Care PHC) centr...

AIMS This study investigated the relationship between alcohol drinking habits and the onset of high medical expenditure in a Japanese male population. METHODS The cohort comprised 94,307 male beneficiaries 40-69 years of age of the Japanese medical insurance system, who had daily alcohol drinking habits. The likelihood of incurring high medical expenditure, defined as the ≥90th percentile of ...

INTRODUCTION This study sought to estimate the incidence, average cost, and total direct medical costs for fatal and non-fatal fall injuries in hospital, ED, and out-patient settings among U.S. adults aged 65 or older in 2012, by sex and age group and to report total direct medical costs for falls inflated to 2015 dollars. METHOD Incidence data came from the 2012 National Vital Statistics Sys...

OBJECTIVE To quantify the relationship between utilization of care among the uninsured and the structure of the local health care market and safety net. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING Nationally representative data from the 1996 to 2000 waves of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) linked to data from multiple secondary sources. STUDY DESIGN We separately analyze outpatient care utilizat...

We use the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to estimate the direct medical costs of diabetes. Separate estimates of the cost of diabetes are developed from an attributable risk procedure and a two-part regression model. Costs include expenditures to treat diabetes, chronic complications of the disease, and co-morbidities requiring additional health care resources because the person is diabetic....

We analyze the financial value of insurance when individuals have access to credit markets. Loans allow consumers to smooth shocks across time, decreasing the value of the smoothing (across states of the world) provided by insurance. We derive a simple formula for the incremental value of insurance and show how it depends on individual characteristics and the features of available loans. Our ce...

background health literacy presents an enormous challenge in the delivery of effective healthcare and quality outcomes. we evaluated the impact of low health literacy (lhl) on healthcare utilization and healthcare expenditure.   methods database analysis used medical expenditure panel survey (meps) from 2005-2008 which provides nationally representative estimates of healthcare utilization and e...

BACKGROUND Diabetes is one of the most prevalent and costly chronic diseases in the United States. OBJECTIVES To analyze the risk of developing diabetes and the annual cost of diabetes for a US general population. METHODS Data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, 2008 to 2012, were used to analyze 1) probabilities of developing diabetes and 2) annual total health care expenditures for...