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PubMedDate not supplied

The cost of rationing medical care by insurance coverage and by waiting.

This paper raises the question of the least-cost institutional mechanism to secure the value of certainty by reducing risk over the purchase of medical care. Two methods of reducing risk are evaluated: financing medical care with 'complete insurance', that is, ready access to medical care that is free at the point of purchase; and rationing by waiting time in a national health service that supplies a limited volume of medical care. The first system corresponds to the type of insurance held by most people in the United States, while the latter represents a stylized model of a national health service. The cost of over-utilization of services by insured consumers in the U.S. is substantial--larger on a per-family basis, and far larger for the nation, than the cost of under-utilization by those who lack insurance. The cost of rationing by waiting is estimated to be between $541 and $828 per family (in 1984 dollars). Thus, both systems involve costly mis-allocation of resources.

Actuarial Analysis↗
PubMed1986

Vision care and health insurance coverage.

This paper presents an overview of third party coverage for optometric services. A questionnaire survey of insurance companies was conducted to determine the extent of major medical coverage for specific optometric services. The influence of freedom of choice laws, expanded scope, pharmaceutical agent legislation and the Medicare program is discussed. The proper use of accepted diagnostic and procedural codes is underscored.

Aphakia↗
PubMed1990

Organ transplantation costs, insurance coverage, and reimbursement.

With few exceptions, most organ transplantation procedures are expensive, although there is considerable variability in costs across transplantation programs. Because of their high cost, many public and private insurers are in the process of carefully evaluating their transplantation coverage and reimbursement policies. Some public insurers have decided to discontinue paying for some procedures on grounds that the resources expended on transplantation could be used to benefit a larger number of people without catastrophic disease. Thus, transplantation is being pitted against health promotion and disease prevention initiatives. Some insurers have also been reluctant to pay for selected transplants, arguing that they are "experimental" or "investigational." Pancreas, lung, and heart-lung transplants are often classified as such. While these decisions have a reasonable basis, concerns related purely to cost, not benefit, have made insurers hesitant to extend coverage to procedures they view as inefficacious. Transplantation programs performing pancreas, heart-lung, and lung transplantation, therefore, do so at some risk. They may not be reimbursed for the procedures they perform, or, more likely, the level of payment received is likely to be substantially below actual hospital costs. To control costs, insurers have also begun to designate transplantation centers. In doing so they limit coverage and reimbursement to programs they regard as "centers of excellence." To become a designated center, a transplantation program must meet preestablished volume and outcome requirements, which insurers believe will assure quality and minimize costs. Thus, designated centers are expected to provide cost-effective transplantation services. If insurers choose to regionalize transplantation programs, controlling both their number and distribution, it is quite possible that patient access to transplantation, as well as their choice of provider, will be severely constrained. In conclusion, concerns related to transplantation costs undoubtedly will have enormous implications for the delivery of transplantation services throughout the foreseeable future. Most significantly, the number of "qualified" centers, using insurer criteria, may be restricted to a small subset of currently active programs. This could have a dramatic affect on the start-up of new programs and the continuation of others.

Costs and Cost Analysis↗
PubMed2003

Confronting the "gray zones" of technology assessment: evaluating genetic testing services for public insurance coverage in Canada.

We describe an evaluation model to guide public coverage of new predictive genetic tests in Ontario, Canada. The model confronts common "gray zones" in evaluation and coverage policy for challenging new technologies. Analysis addresses three domains of the evaluation picture. The first specifies evaluative criteria (purpose, effectiveness, additional effects, unit cost, demand, cost-effectiveness). The second induces or deduces acceptable cutoffs for each criterion. The third domain addresses the need to make decisions under uncertainty and to respond to "gray" evaluations with conditional-coverage decisions. The evaluation criteria should be applied within sound decision-making processes.

Canada↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Effect of insurance coverage on the relationship between asthma hospitalizations and exposure to air pollution.

OBJECTIVE: Based on the assumption that people without health insurance have limited access to the primary care services needed to prevent unnecessary hospitalizations for asthma, the authors hypothesized that insurance is a factor in the strength of the association between hospital admissions for asthma and exposure to air pollution. They tested this hypothesis with 1991-1994 data from central Los Angeles. METHODS: The authors analyzed the effect of insurance status on the association between asthma-related hospital admissions and exposure to atmospheric particulates (PM10) and ozone (O3) using hospital discharge and air quality data for 1991-1994 for central Los Angeles. They used regression techniques with weighted moving averages (simulating distributed lag structures) to measure the effects of exposure on overall hospital admissions, admissions of uninsured patients, admissions for which MediCal (California Medicaid) was the primary payer, and admissions for which the primary payer was another government or private health insurance program. RESULTS: No associations were found between asthma admissions and O3 exposure. An estimated increase from 1991 to 1994 of 50 micrograms per cubic meter in PM10 concentrations averaged over eight days was associated with an increase of 21.0% in the number of asthma admissions. An even stronger increase--27.4%--was noted among MediCal asthma admissions. CONCLUSIONS: The authors conclude that low family income, as indicated by MediCal coverage, is a better predictor of asthma exacerbations associated with air pollution than lack of insurance and, by implication, a better predictor of insufficient access to primary care.

Air Pollutants↗
PubMed1999

Insurance coverage of unintended pregnancies resulting in live-born infants--Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, 1996.

In the United States during 1994, approximately 49% of all pregnancies, excluding miscarriages, were unintended. Unintended pregnancy can result in adverse health outcomes that affect the mother, infant, and family. Little is known about the distribution of unintended pregnancy with respect to the payment source for health care. In the absence of data for periconceptional payment source for health care, prenatal-care payment source is used as a surrogate. To develop recommendations to reduce unintended pregnancy, CDC analyzed insurance coverage-specific prevalences of live-born infants from unintended pregnancies among women aged 20-34 years using data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System (PRAMS) for 1996 (the most recent year for which data are available). This report summarizes the results of this analysis, which indicates that the highest rates of unintended pregnancy occurred among women covered by Medicaid, with lower rates among women covered by health-maintenance organizations (HMOs) or private insurance.

Adult↗