Proponents of health savings accounts (HSAs) contend that they will reduce medical expenditures. In practice, however, the effect of HSAs, and the high-deductible health plans that must accompany them, will depend on the actual provisions of those plans and of the plans they replace. We show that typical plans in the market today already contain substantial cost sharing. We find that many HSA/h...

PURPOSE To determine the cost savings of stereotactic core needle biopsy over open surgical biopsy in patient subgroups defined according to mammographic findings. MATERIALS AND METHODS From July 1992 through February 1995, stereotactic core needle biopsy was performed in 356 women with 405 nonpalpable breast lesions (254 were masses and 151 were calcification). Lesions were classified accord...

Access network is the last mile of the communication network that connects the telecom Central Office (CO) to the residential and business customers. With the proliferation of the Internet, customer demands for bandwidth-intensive services are rapidly increasing. Access network comprises a large part of the Internet. It is a major energy consumer in the Internet due to the presence of huge numb...

This article describes a low cost retrofit technology that uses collective control of multiple rooftop air conditioning units to reduce the peak power consumption of small and medium commercial buildings. The proposed control uses a thermal model of the building and air conditioning units to select an operating schedule for the air conditioning units that maintains a temperature set point subje...

BACKGROUND Nearly five percent of Americans suffer from functional constipation, many of whom may benefit from increasing dietary fiber consumption. The annual constipation-related healthcare cost savings associated with increasing intakes may be considerable but have not been examined previously. The objective of the present study was to estimate the economic impact of increased dietary fiber ...

BACKGROUND California Workers' Compensation (WC) system costs are under review. With recently approved California State Assembly Bill (AB) 749 and Senate Bill (SB) 228, an assessment of proposed pharmaceutical cost savings is needed. METHODS A large workers' compensation database provided by the California Workers' Compensation Institute (CWCI) and Medi-Cal pharmacy costs obtained from the St...