BACKGROUND Nearly one in three Americans are financially burdened by their medical expenses. To mitigate financial distress, experts recommend routine physician-patient cost conversations. However, the content and incidence of these conversations are unclear, and rigorous definitions are lacking. We sought to develop a novel set of cost conversation definitions, and determine the impact of defi...

medicines constitute a substantial proportion of out-of-pocket (oop) expenses in indian households. in order to address this issue, the government of india launched the jan aushadhi (medicine for the masses) scheme (jas) to provide cheap generic medicines to the patients (http://janaushadhi.gov.in/about_jan_aushadhi.html). these medicines are provided through the jan aushadhi stores established...

Research on impact of publicly financed health insurance has paid relatively little attention to the nature of healthcare provision the schemes engage. India's National Health Insurance Scheme or RSBY was made universal by Chhattisgarh State in 2012. In the State, public and private sectors provide hospital services in a context of extensive gender, social, economic and geographical inequities....

This study estimates progressivity of out-of-pocket (OOP) health payments and their determinants using South African Income Expenditure Surveys. Concentration is decomposed to examine the effec...

Despite progressive universal drug coverage and pharmaceutical policies found in other countries, Canada remains the only developed nation with a publicly funded healthcare system that does not include universal coverage for prescription drugs. In the absence of a national pharmacare plan, a province may choose to cover a specific sub-population for certain drugs. Altho...

INTRODUCTION The free maternal health policy was implemented in Ghana in 2008 under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). The policy sought to eliminate out of pocket (OOP) payments and enhance the utilisation of maternal health services. It is unclear whether the policy had altered OOP payments for services. The study explored views on costs and actual OOP payments during pregnancy. The...

Objective The objective of this study is to determine if critical illness insurance (CII) promotes the universal health coverage reduce out-of-pocket (OOP) medical expenditures and improve effective reimbursement rate (ERR) in rural China. Study design 5-year monthly hospitalisation data, starting 2 years before CII (ie, ‘intervention’) began, were collected. Interrupted time series analysis mo...

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, associated with severe liver disease and cancer, affects 70 million people worldwide. New treatments with direct-acting-antivirals offer cure for about 95% of affected individuals; however, treatment costs may be prohibitive in both the poorest and richest nations. Opting for cure may require sacrificing essential household ass...