In the US prescription drug costs are rising faster than any other component of health care expenditures, and show no signs of slowing. Spending on prescription drugs has been estimated by the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) to be rising by approximately 12% per year, more than twice the rate for national health care expenditures (5.1%). Factors driving the rise in prescription drug c...

BACKGROUND High drug costs due to supplier-induced demand (SID) obstruct healthcare accessibility in China. Drug prescriptions can generate markup-related profits, and the low prices of other medical services can lead to labor-force underestimations; therefore, physicians are keen to prescribe drugs rather than services. Thus, in China, a public hospital reform has been instituted to cancel mar...

48 Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy JMCP January/February 2004 Vol. 10, No. 1 www.amcp.org ormularies have existed in various forms for nearly 100 years. Beginning as a simple list of available drugs, they have evolved into a dynamic guide for the selection and application of preferred drug therapies by pharmacists and physicians in clinical applications. Formularies have been utilized widely a...

BACKGROUND Medicare Part D, introduced in January 2006, was intended to decrease beneficiaries' out-of-pocket expenditures on medications. METHODS We examined whether this policy was successful in achieving this goal, including effects on Medicare beneficiaries without previous drug coverage and those who previously received coverage through Medicaid, in a longitudinal study of out-of-pocket ...

This study used national Medicaid data from 1994-2003 to investigate trends in noninstitutional drug utilization and expenditures in the Medicaid Program. We found that there was a substantial increase in both drug utilization and expenditures during this timeframe. Increased utilization resulted from increases in Medicaid enrollment, the mean number of prescriptions per enrollee, mean nominal ...

Estimating spending for prescription drugs has become increasingly difficult over the past 15 years as extensive changes have taken place within the retail prescription drug industry. Expenditures for prescription drugs in retail outlets grew rapidly during the 1980s and early 1990s. New retail outlets emerged and existing sites lost market share. New mechanisms for reimbursing drug purchases l...

health price inflation rate is different from increasing in health expenditures. health expenditures contain both quantity and prices but inflation rate contains prices. this study aimed to determine the factors that affect the inflation rate for health care services (ircpihc) in iran.we used central bank of iran data. we estimated the relationship between the inflation rate and its determinant...