ost experts who examine America’s persistent healthcare cost and quality problems identify fee-for-service (FFS) reimbursement as an key contributor to the system’s chronic ills. Under FFS, doctors and hospitals are paid more for doing more, not for delivering better outcomes. The economic incentives under FFS actually discourage quality improvement because care that “gets it right the first ti...

introduction extended use of agricultural chemicals by farmers in transfer of technology model has threatened the safety of agricultural production. moreover, non- participatory nature of extension classes failed to motivate farmers to use less chemical inputs in the production process. in the early 1990s, participatory approaches proved to be effective in integrated pest management (ipm). the ...

Since 1985, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) has encouraged health maintenance organizations (HMOs) to provide Medicare coverage to enrolled beneficiaries for fixed prepaid premiums. Our evaluation shows that the risk program achieves some of its goals while not fulfilling others. We find that HMOs provide care of comparable quality to that delivered by free-for-service (FFS) pro...

AIM The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of feeding fermented fish silage (FFS) on serum biochemical parameters of Japanese quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica). MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 192, 7-day-old broiler Japanese quail chicks of either sex, were randomly distributed into four dietary treatments with four replicates in each group having 12 chicks in each replicat...

Ferrofluids (FFs) are stable colloidal suspensions composed of single-domain magnetic nanoparticles dispersed in a carrier liquid. And it is an intelligent material, exhibiting normal liquid behaviour coupled with superparamagnetic properties. Since the properties and the location of these fluids can easily be influenced by a magnetic field, FFs have recently attracted many scientific, industri...

BACKGROUND National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) records have been linked to health care use and expenditure information from Medicare records. Claims data are generally available only for traditional fee-for-service (FFS) enrollees and not for Medicare Advantage enrollees. Differences in health characteristics between Medicare Advantage and traditional FFS enrollees could a...

Abstract Introduction Firefighters’ (FFs) cardiorespiratory fitness is considered an important capacity for workability. To successfully complete safety standards and rescue protocols, FFs are required to accomplish minimum values of relative VO 2max . Physical programs must take into consideration physiological demands, being essential not only professional tasks but also as a guarantee their ...

BACKGROUND Dose-escalated (DE) radiation therapy (RT) and androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) improve prostate cancer outcomes over standard-dose RT. The benefit of adding ADT to DE-RT for men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer (IR-PrCa) is uncertain. PATIENTS AND METHODS We identified 636 men treated for IR-PrCa with DE-RT (>75Gy). The adult comorbidity evaluation-27 index classifed comor...

To achieve the most energy-efficient operation, this brief presents a circuit design technique for separating the power supply voltage (VDD) of flip-flops (FFs) from that of combinational circuits, called the higher voltage FF (HVFF). Although VDD scaling can reduce the energy, the minimum operating voltage (VDDmin) of FFs prevents the operation at the optimum supply voltage that minimizes the ...

Medicare beneficiaries in fee-for-service (FFS) who had chronic illnesses and volunteered to participate in 15 care coordination programs were randomized to treatment or control status. Nurses provided patient education (mostly by telephone) to improve adherence and ability to communicate with physicians. Patients were contacted an average of two times per month. The findings after 2 years are ...