Background: Out-of-pocket and informal payments are considered as 2 most important topics for equity in health care financing. Therfore, this study was conducted to systematically review and meta-analyze the status of these payments in Iran's health care system. Methods: Required data were collected through searching the following key terms: "Unofficial", "Informal Payment", "Iran", "Health Fin...

under the table or informal payments in several middle and low income countries is a serious impediment to health care reform. these payments are effectively a form of systemic corruption. this report shows the efforts of a patient who seek health care for his ankle while being requested to pay under the table in hospital and private clinic. the data were collected by interview and surveying pa...

IMPORTANCE Under bundled payment programs, hospitals receive a single payment for all services provided surrounding an episode of care. Because health care providers, such as hospitals and physicians, accept more financial risk under these programs, they will need a better understanding of episode costs to identify areas to target improvements in quality and cost-efficiency. OBJECTIVE To exam...

Using survey data, we examined Medicaid supplemental payments (SPs), including disproportionate-share hospital (DSH) and upper payment limit (UPL) payments in 2005 and changes in these payments between 2001 and 2005. We found that states increased their use of general funds in financing of DSH payments while expanding the size and scope of other SPs considerably. Although the federal government...

OBJECTIVE  To examine the association between payments made by the manufacturers of pharmaceuticals to physicians and prescribing by physicians within hospital referral regions. DESIGN  Cross sectional analysis of 2013 and 2014 Open Payments and Medicare Part D prescribing data for two classes of commonly prescribed, commonly marketed drugs: oral anticoagulants and non-insulin diabetes drugs,...

Given that both the costs and the benefits of biodiversity-enhancing land-use measures are subject to spatial variation, considerations of allocational efficiency call for spatially differentiated compensation payments for such measures. However, when deciding whether to implement uniform or spatially differentiated compensation payments, the regulator has to balance the allocational efficiency...