BACKGROUND An estimated $8.1 billion (in 2004 dollars) is spent annually on total health care costs for the treatment of breast cancer in the United States. Breast cancer has traditionally been treated with intravenous (IV) cancer therapies that entail not only the drug acquisition cost, but additional costs of personnel time, supplies, and equipment used in the preparation and administration o...

BACKGROUND People with Huntington's disease (HD) often require tailored healthcare and support packages that develop as the disease progresses. The Client Service Receipt Inventory (CSRI) gathers retrospective information on service utilization. This study investigated the use of formal services and informal care as measured by the CSRI and explored associations between informal care, disease s...

This article reports on preliminary impacts during the first year of a demonstration in which home health agencies (HHAs) were paid a prospectively set rate for each Medicare home health visit rendered, rather than being reimbursed for costs. Forty-seven agencies in five States participated. The evaluation compared the experiences of randomly assigned treatment agencies and their patients with ...

BACKGROUND High drug costs due to supplier-induced demand (SID) obstruct healthcare accessibility in China. Drug prescriptions can generate markup-related profits, and the low prices of other medical services can lead to labor-force underestimations; therefore, physicians are keen to prescribe drugs rather than services. Thus, in China, a public hospital reform has been instituted to cancel mar...

M health care experts believe that primary care is the foundation on which to build a high-performing health care system, with maximized quality and reduced costs.1 The Affordable Care Act (ACA), in an acknowledgment of primary care’s importance, includes a 10% payment bonus for primary care physicians participating in Medicare between 2011 and 2015. This fee-for-service payment incentive does ...