BACKGROUND Protecting households against financial risks is one of objectives of any health system. In this regard, Iran's fourth five year developmental plan act in its 90th article, articulated decreasing household's exposure to catastrophic health expenditure to one percent. Hence, this study aimed to measure percentage of Iranian households exposed to catastrophic health expenditures and to...

BACKGROUND The prescription drug benefit is commonly designed and managed as a stand-alone health insurance product without consideration of how the design of other medical benefits may impact its use. OBJECTIVE To determine the effects of member cost (copayment/coinsurance) increases on the relationship between the use of physician office visits and the type/tier of prescription medication p...

BACKGROUND Patient satisfaction is a widely used health care quality metric. However, the relationship between patient satisfaction and health care utilization, expenditures, and outcomes remains ill defined. METHODS We conducted a prospective cohort study of adult respondents (N = 51,946) to the 2000 through 2007 national Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, including 2 years of panel data for ...

BACKGROUND Medication expenditures have become the fastest growing sector of costs within the Canadian health care system. Evaluation of the use of cardiovascular medications is important to determine the magnitude of the growth, to identify which medications dominate the landscape and to detect interprovincial differences in utilization. We describe long-term trends in the use of and expenditu...

This analysis uses a consistent pan-Canadian dataset--Canadian CompuScript from IMS Health, Canada--to quantify trends in per capita drug expenditures within each Canadian province over the period of 1998 to 2004. The impacts of changes in six potential determinants of drug expenditure are calculated for every province. Each of the six detailed cost drivers falls into one of three broad categor...

This study investigates the firm level determinants of profitability of Indian drug and pharmaceutical industry. The study uses inflation adjusted panel data for a period 2000-2013 and applies OLS regression model with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors. It has been found that export intensity, A&M intensity, firm’s market power and stronger patent regime dummy have exercised positive influence on ...

Background Drug expenditures continue to rise due to increasing disease burden and emergence of new drugs. World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that Drug and Therapeutic Committee (DTC) be set up in healthcare institutions to manage drug formularies and policies promoting rational drug selection and use. Operations of DTCs in MOH facilities are yet to be documented. This study was set to...

BACKGROUND Sustainability of cancer care is a crucial issue for health care systems worldwide, even more during a time of economic recession. Low-cost measures are highly desirable to contain and reduce expenditures without impairing the quality of care. In this paper we aim to demonstrate the efficacy of drug waste minimization in reducing drug-related costs and its importance as a structural ...

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 Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is one of the greatest social health problems in many communities in the twenty-first century. Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) could decrease HIV infection among injection drug users (IDU). The main aim of this paper was to determine the cost-effectiveness of the governmental MMT program to prevent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in...