In the Spring 1995 issue of Health Affairs Mark Pauly and John Goodman outlined their proposal for medical savings accounts (MSAs) supplemented with tax credits to purchase insurance and encourage cost-effective consumer behavior. This proposal has been widely debuted, both in Washington and across the nation. To further enlighten the debate, Health Affairs presents two accounts of the experien...

the position of financial organization would be increasingly decisive in the next decade in view of the frightening competition. with the increasing number of businesses and growing competitions today, each organization wants to be the customer’s first choice and try to satisfy them for getting loyalty for their future endurance in the market.  however, it is open to ask whether the organizatio...

OBJECTIVE To analyze variability in urologists' Medicare utilization and payment and estimate potential cost savings of standardized service utilization using information from the recently released Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Physician and Other Supplier Public Use File (PUF) and to highlight potential limitations of PUF analysis. MATERIALS AND METHODS The Centers for Medi...

The Genetic Resource Center (GRC) is a centralized process for requesting genetic testing that is not available within the province (Alberta, Canada). In order to assess potential cost savings associated with this process, all applications received by the GRC in 2010 were reviewed, and cost savings were recorded for statistical analysis. Seven areas of cost savings were identified: (i) negotiat...

Buildings are among the largest consumers of energy. Part of the energy is wasted due to the habits of users and equipment conditions. A solution to this problem is efficient energy usage. To this end, an energy audit can be conducted to assess the energy efficiency. This study aims to analyze the energy usage of a primary school and identify the potential energy reductions and cost savings. A ...

BACKGROUND Shortened treatment regimens for tuberculosis are under development to improve treatment outcomes and reduce costs. We estimated potential savings from a societal perspective in Brazil following the introduction of a hypothetical four-month regimen for tuberculosis treatment. METHODS Data were gathered in ten randomly selected health facilities in Rio de Janeiro. Health service cos...

Prevention of unhealthy lifestyles has sometimes been promoted as simultaneously reducing costs and improving public health but this will unlikely prove to be true. Additional medical costs in life years gained due to treatment of unrelated diseases may offset possible savings in related diseases, but are often ignored both in health promotion policies and in economic evaluations of life-prolon...