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This article examines (i) the background and debate over cost shifting; (ii) hospitals as business institutions that often shift the financial responsibility for their costs in the form of differential pricing; and (iii) how the cost-shifting debate affects and is affected by Medicare. The aim is to gain a better understanding of how changes in reimbursement by large government health insurance...

The costs attributed to employee health problems are usually measured by employers in terms of direct health care costs, such as medical plan claims. Although it has been understood that employee health problems also produce indirect costs for employers, their measurement has been far less frequent. At best, studies have recorded one component of indirect health costs: the time lost to employee...

Background We assessed direct and indirect costs associated with COPD in Sweden and examined how these costs vary across time, age, and disease stage in a cohort of patients with COPD and matched controls in a real-world, primary care (PC) setting. Patients and methods Data from electronic medical records linked to the mandatory national health registers were collected for COPD patients and a...

BACKGROUND This study aimed at identifying components of the household health costs. METHODS This study was a qualitative research conducted in two main phases. The first phase consisted of interviews with sample households selected in eight provinces of Iran. They were to identify components of the household health costs. In the second phase, components were determined as direct, indirect an...

In this paper the problem of minimum cost communication network design is considered where the costs are piecewise linear concave. Several methods are compared: Simulated Annealing method, a heuristic based on the method proposed by Minoux, and a lagrangian method based on lower bounding procedure.

BACKGROUND Outpatient treatment of uncomplicated acute diverticulitis is safe and effective. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of outpatient treatment on the reduction of healthcare costs. PATIENTS AND METHODS A retrospective cohort study comparing 2 groups was performed. In the outpatient treatment group, patients diagnosed with uncomplicated acute diverticulitis were treated...

The upcoming release of new whole-genome genotyping technologies will shed new light on whether there is an associative effect of previously immeasurable rare variants on incidence of disease. For Genetic Analysis Workshop 17, our team focused on a statistical method to detect associations between gene-based multiple rare variants and disease status. We added a combination of rare SNPs to a com...

Multiple measures exist that examine the attentional aspects of meditation practice, but measurement of the compassion component is relatively understudied. This paper describes the development and initial validation of a scale designed to measure application of the four immeasurable qualities at the heart of Buddhist teachings: loving kindness, compassion, joy and acceptance toward both self a...