BaCkgRound: Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is rapidly add-ing to the amount of data available to health care coverage and paymentdecision makers. Medicare’s decisions have a large effect on coverage andreimbursement policies throughout the health insurance industry and willlikely influence the entire u.S. health care system; thus, examining its rolein integrating C...

INTRODUCTION The USA lags behind other high-income countries in many health indicators. Outcome differences are associated with differences in the relative spending between healthcare and social services at the national level. The impact of the ratio and delivery of social and healthcare services on the individual patient's health is however unknown. 'Reframing Healthcare Services through the L...

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) stands out as the intriguing wild card of health care reform. CER compares competing treatments against each other to determine which interventions work best, supplying critical information for medical decisionmaking and health policy. If CER works as planned, it may be one of the few reform measures in the final health care legislation that could flatte...

background: non-communicable diseases (ncds) and psychological hazards are increasingly observed in industries, necessitating the need to strengthen industrial health systems to control the same. district level data on level of functioning of industrial health systems and services with special focus on systems available for mental health care is lacking in india. this information is vital to pl...

BACKGROUND Comparison of patient empowerment (PE) policies in European countries can provide evidence for improvement and reform across different health systems. It may also influence patient and public involvement, patient experience, preference, and adherence. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to compare PE within national policies, systems, and structures in England and Greece for ...

ANN C. FOSTER and CRAIG J. KREISLER T he National Health Care Expenditure Accounts (NHEA), the official estimates of total health care spending in the United States, show that in 2008, U.S. health care spending by business, governments, and households was $2.3 trillion, or $7,681 per person. The NHEA also shows that in 2008 health care spending was 16.2 percent of the gross domestic product (GD...

OBJECTIVE: The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act required health plans to provide mental health and substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefits on par with medical benefits beginning in 2010. Previous research found that parity significantly lowered average out-of-pocket (OOP) spending on MH/SUD treatment of children. No evidence is available on how par...

neil lunt and russel mannion provide an overview of the current state of the medical tourism literature and propose areas for future research in health policy and management. the authors also identify the main unanswered questions in this field ranging from the real size of the medical tourism market to the particular health profiles of transnational patients. in addition, they highlight unexpl...