This paper reports marketplace developments for consumer-driven health plans in spring 2002. Findings are from interviews with executives from start-up and health insurance firms, benefit consultants, employee benefit managers, Wall Street analysts, consumer organizations, thought leaders, and policymakers. We detail available evidence about the performance of consumer-driven health plans conce...

abstract purpose of this paper: the objectives of this paper are two folds: (1) utilizing hierarchical fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (topsis) approach to evaluate the most suitable rfid-based systems decision, and (2) to highlight key risks and benefits of radio frequency identification technology in healthcare industry. design/methodology/approach: resear...

Background: Healthy lifestyle affects the health of mother and fetus during pregnancy. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of group discussion and multimedia package education interventions on healthy lifestyle among pregnant women. Methods: In this semi-experimental study 151 pregnant women in the 16-28 weeks of pregnancy age who were referring comprehensive health centers in Baj...

The authors found that two mandatory Medicaid primary care case management (PCCM) programs were somewhat successful in improving access to primary care among children in the early 1990s. However, the Florida program, in which the PCCM benefit package included Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) services, did not meaningfully increase EPSDT screening visits among pres...

n engl j med 360;15 nejm.org april 9, 2009 1477 ARRA is historic health care legislation of the type rarely produced by our famously incremental federal government. The law prevents dramatic state cuts in Medicaid, expands funding for preventive health care services and health care research, and helps the unemployed buy health insurance. But perhaps its most profound effect on doctors and patie...

BACKGROUND Innovative financing strategies such as those that integrate supply and demand elements like the output-based approach (OBA) have been implemented to reduce financial barriers to maternal health services. The Kenyan government with support from the German Development Bank (KfW) implemented an OBA voucher program to subsidize priority reproductive health services. Little evidence exis...

Thailand is encountering challenges to introduce the high-cost sofosbuvir for chronic hepatitis C treatment as part of the Universal Health Care's benefit package. This study was conducted in respond to policy demand from the Thai government to assess the value for money and budget impact of introducing sofosbuvir-based regimens in the tax-based health insurance scheme. The Markov model was con...

BACKGROUND China uses both social health insurance (SHI) programs and a medical financial assistance (MFA) program to protect the poor from illness-induced financial risks. The MFA provides a dual benefit package targeting low-income families: subsidizing these families' participation in SHI programs, and providing cash aid to protect them from catastrophic health expenditure (CHE). This study ...