P rescription drugs are playing an increasingly greater role in the health care delivery system: not only are more Americans using prescription medicines than ever before, but the number of prescriptions per user has increased as has the number of days of therapy per prescription. Between 1977 and 1998, the proportion of Americans taking at least one prescription rose from 58 to 66 percent and ...

background : inequality in households’ payments on food and health expenditures presents the accessibility and utili-zation patterns between them. this study investigated the iranian rural and urban households’ inequality in payments on food and out-of-pocket health expenditures from 1998 to 2012. methods : this descriptive study was conducted through the analysis of iranian statistics centre d...

BACKGROUND Pharmaceutical manufacturer coupons are a rapidly growing promotional activity intended to encourage initiation and continuing use of brand-name medications, but little is known about impacts on medication adherence and expenditures. OBJECTIVE To understand which patients use manufacturer coupons and the impact of coupons on brand-name statin (atorvastatin and rosuvastatin) use and...

BACKGROUND Concerned with the rising costs of its drug programs for seniors and social-assistance recipients, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador requested physicians and pharmacists at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, and members of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association and the Newfoundland Pharmaceutical Association to provide guidance to the health care community ...

background and objectives: efficient cost management in hospitals’ pharmaceutical inventories have thepotential to remarkably contribute to optimization of overall hospital expenditures. to this end, reliable forecasting models for accurate prediction of future pharmaceutical demands are instrumental. while the linear methods are frequently used for forecasting purposes chiefly due to their sim...

Rising costs in pharmaceutical expenditure have become a major concern for policy makers in Germany over the last years. Therefore the pharmaceutical market in Germany has been increasingly targeted by different kinds of regulations, focussing both on the supply and the demand side, using price, volume and spending controls. Specific regulations include price reductions, reference pricing, phar...

BACKGROUND Evidence suggests that direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs increases pharmaceutical sales and both helps to avert underuse of medicines and leads to potential overuse. Concern about such advertising has increased recently owing to the withdrawal from the market of heavily advertised drugs found to carry serious risks. Moreover, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ...