OBJECTIVE To document the opinions of the users of the Quebec Physicians Health Program (QPHP) about the services they received. DESIGN Mailed questionnaire. SETTING Quebec. PARTICIPANTS A total of 126 physicians who used QPHP services between 1999 and 2004. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Users' overall rating of the QPHP services, their opinions about the program, and whether their situations i...

BACKGROUND The importance of the Out-of-Pocket payments (OOP) for health, as well as the share of the household's income devoted to this purpose provide relevant information for the characterization of the health system. Chile has two coexisting alternative insurance systems (a public system called FONASA and a private system generically called ISAPRE or preventive health institutions), becomin...

INTRODUCTION Since the beginnings of the modern era, medicine has evolved tremendously. Merely two hundred years ago, American and European medical treatments were generally provided by independent physicians who went from home to home to offer their services. From this form of medicine, often referred to as " bedside medicine " , (1) Western countries started to move towards a more centralized...

Is happiness good for your health? This common notion is tested in a synthetic analysis of 30 follow-up studies on happiness and longevity. It appears that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations, but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations So, happiness does not cure illness but it does protect against becoming ill. The effect of happiness on longevity in heal...

In our experience, family physicians vary widely in their understanding of preventive care coding. Questions we’ve heard range from “What ICD-9 codes are appropriate with preventive care visits?” all the way down to “Preventive codes? What are preventive codes? I only use evaluation and management [E/M] codes.” No matter what your level of comfort (or discomfort) with coding preventive visits, ...

Many adults with migraine who require preventive therapy are often not prescribed the proper medications. The most likely reason is that primary care physicians are unacquainted with preventive medications for migraine. The present study assessed the migraine-preventive prescription patterns in office visits using data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey from 2006 to 2009 in the Un...

From the Medical-Surgical Group, Office of Patient Care Services (R.G.D.), and the Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards (M.J.H.), Veterans Health Administration, Washington, D.C.; and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md. (D.G.B., H.R.C.). Address reprint requests to Dr. DePalma at the Office of Patient Care Services, Veterans Health Administration...

Research has shown that religion is associated with a wide range of health behaviors among adults of all ages. Although there is strong support for religion's influence on behaviors such as drinking and smoking, less is known about the possible relationship between religion and the use of preventive health services. This relationship may be particularly important in Mexico, a country with high ...

The current emphasis on preventive health care and wellness services suggests that measures of skills and competencies needed to effectively navigate the health care system need to be better defined. We take an expanded perspective of health literacy and define it as a set of skills used to organize and apply health knowledge, attitudes and practices relevant when managing one's health environm...

challenges that occur during planning, development, implementation, and evaluation efforts. In this commentary, we focus on implementation challenges faced by employers— issues that must be addressed after an organization has made a commitment to offering a worksite health promotion program. Of course, initial support from top management must be secured. But evidence suggests that management su...