BACKGROUND Motorcycles are the most popular means of transportation in northern Ghana, and their accidents are major causes of out-patient attendance and admissions in the Bolgatanga Municipality. OBJECTIVE This paper estimates the economic burden of motorcycle accidents in the Bolgatanga Municipality in Northern Ghana. DESIGN Retrospective cross-sectional cost study. METHODS Data were co...

Affordability of medical care is a central focus of health care reform efforts. As health care costs continue to increase and the economy declines sharply, there is very little cushion in family budgets for health care costs, even for families with insurance coverage. Financial pressures on families from medical bills increase sharply when out-of-pocket spending for health care services exceeds...

BACKGROUND Bangladesh has a high proportion of households incurring catastrophic health expenditure, and very limited risk sharing mechanisms. Identifying determinants of out-of-pocket (OOP) payments and catastrophic health expenditure may reveal opportunities to reduce costs and protect households from financial risk. OBJECTIVE This study investigates the determinants of high healthcare expe...

General practitioners are unlikely to receive the exact level of remuneration recommended in the 16th report of the doctors' and dentists' review body' even if the level was accepted in full by the government and implemented from 1 April. This alarming sounding position is so because general practitioners' remuneration is a series of fees and allowances designed to produce an average income acr...

People have heterogenous life expectancies: women live longer than men, rich people live longer than poor people, and healthy people live longer than sick people. People are also subject to heterogenous outof-pocket medical expense risk. Using AHEAD data and the method of simulated moments, we estimate a rich structural model of saving for retired single households that accounts for this hetero...

This study examines women's use and expenditures for medical care in the US. In 2000, 91% of women aged 18 years and older used any form of health care services. Overall, 82% of adult women reported an ambulatory care visit, and 11% had an inpatient hospital stay. Mean expense per person with expenses was 3219 dollars for that year. We examined use and expenditures by sociodemographic character...

In the United States child adoption costs vary considerably, ranging from no out-of-pocket expense to $50,000 or more. What are the underlying causes for the variability in child adoption expenses? While cost variability is widely acknowledged, the sources of the differentials have not been systematically examined. This research considers the possibility that adoption cost differentials are det...

Health care finance in developing and low income countries is still predominantly based on out-of-pocket (OOP) payments, and the lack of prepayment mechanisms like insurance. In the absence of insurance, an illness not only reduces welfare directly, it also increases the risk of impoverishment due to high treatment expenditures. It is now widely acknowledged that health care expenditures can dr...