OBJECTIVES (1) To estimate the cost of irrational prescribing, and (2) to compare the effect of three different kinds of user fee on prescribing costs, in rural Nepal. METHODS A controlled before-after study was conducted in 33 government primary health care facilities in rural eastern Nepal during 1992-95. A fee per prescription (covering all drugs in whatever amounts) was regarded as the co...

BACKGROUND User fees for primary care tend to suppress utilization, and many countries are experimenting with fee removal. Studies show that additional inputs are needed after removing fees, although well-documented experiences are lacking. This study presents data on the effects of fee removal on facility quality and utilization in Afghanistan, based on a pilot experiment and subsequent nation...

In 2009, the methods for paying SHI-affiliated physicians in ambulatory care were changed. The era of capitation fees and strict budgeting is over. GPs and specialists are now paid on a capped fee-for-service basis, with a payment ceiling that is set for each doctor and adjusted for specialization, the number of cases and patient age. Instead of a floating-point fee schedule, a fee schedule wit...

Many health policy analysts envision provider payment reforms currently under development as replacements for the traditional fee-forservice payment system. Reforms include per episode bundled payment and elements of capitation, such as global payments or accountable care organizations. But even if these approaches succeed and are widely adopted, the core method of payment to many physicians fo...

This study analyzes the pricing of auditors’ business risk in the first year of an audit engagement. We posit that reportable events from the prior auditor’s tenure that are disclosed in the 8-K auditor change filing provide reliable information about the level of business risk for the incoming auditor. We hypothesize that for clients perceived as risky, the incoming auditor charges a fee-premi...

Direct primary care (DPC) is a growing movement across the United States involving at least 429 practices in 47 states. Family medicine physicians operating DPC practices share several characteristics: • They charge a periodic (monthly or annual) fee for a defined set of primary care services, • They do not bill any third parties on a fee-for-service basis for the services covered by the period...

The Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (as amended in 1970) prohibits mutual funds in the US from o ering their advisers asymmetric \incentive fee" contracts in which the advisers are rewarded for superior performance via-a-vis a chosen index but are not correspondingly penalized for underforming it. The rationale o ered in defense of the regulation by both the SEC and Congress is that incentive f...