Should dental implants be an insured benefit?
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In this unusual form of self mutilation the fracture of the phalanx has been carried out--upon request--by foreign person (inderect self mutilation), in order to obtain illegal accident insurance money. Short survey of the relevant literature is given and the possibilities are outlined, which facilitate at the primary wound dressing the establishment of suspicious cases.
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The Social Security Administration contracts with state agencies to process disability claims filed under the Social Security Act. These state agencies employ physicians and lay adjudicators who secure medical reports from physicians, hospitals and clinics, and use these reports in awarding or denying disability benefits. This nationwide study showed that well over half of the lay adjudicators are involved in developing and interpreting medical information independently. This suggests that appropriate hiring practices, adequate training and certification procedures should be instituted to ensure that the lay disability adjudicators are able to conduct their job efficiently and correctly.
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Admission of the insurance qualifying occupational skin disease (No. 5101 of Schedule 1 of the Occupational Disease Regulations = BeKV) has as its pre-requisite the availability of the medical evidence. The beginning of the period qualifying for insurance benefit shall be determined retrospectively. A hazardous activity appertains even if only a minor portion of the field of activity is the cause of the disease. Qualifying for insurance benefits requires that this activity shall have been finally given up and that the same or other hazardous activities are avoided in the future. This prognosis must have a good measure of probability. Otherwise, if the insured acts in bad faith, a pension may be withheld; if the insured acted in good faith a worsening of a syndrome by the hazardous activity (whether carried on as occupation or on one's own behalf) is not compensated for. The insurance qualifying date, furthermore, is dependent on the necessity for first-time medical treatment, medicines or therapeutic agents, or the incapacity for work, or the arising of a pension-qualifying reduction in earning power.
Expanded health insurance benefits for the treatment of mental illness have obliged psychiatrists to devote more time to justifying psychiatric treatment to claims reviewers. The author, drawing from experience in utilization review and peer review, summarizes factors contributing to the denial of payment for psychiatric services by health insurers, and gives practical advice on protecting against claims denials and on the process of appealing denials. Psychiatrists should make greater use of peer review committees to justify legitimate treatment services in the face of claims denials. Greater coverage for psychiatric treatment under national health insurance will increase the psychiatrist's responsibility for public accountability. This accountability will require better communication between psychiatrists and claims reviewers.
I examine the development of privately provided insurance since World War II, giving special attention to Empire Blue Cross, and argue that the competition between employers and unions for the loyalty of workers after the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act helped diffuse private health insurance benefits already favored by federal policies. For-profit insurers did not challenge the privileged status of Blue Cross plans because they recognized the political benefits that the plans offered and because they did not wish to offend the plans' sponsors. A relatively easy and profitable business, health insurance has been greatly disturbed by the system inflation accompanying the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid programs. Now self-insurance and various managed-care schemes are major threats. The future may bring consolidation and the strengthening of pools, just the opposite of today's system fragmentation.
This report examines the major forms of administration of private health insurance plans. Plans are classified according to whether they are employer-only or joint worker-employer-operated and according to whether they are negotiated or not. A further focus of examination that often reflects industry patterns is whether the plans cover workers of a single employer or involve multi-employer arrangements. These classifications of administration and the method of insuring benefits are examined in terms of proportions of workers with specified plan characteristics and health benefits.
The existing insurance coverage for mental health benefits provides incentives for hospital as compared with community care and reinforces a medical approach to psychological disability. Moreover, the structure of benefits favors the affluent as compared with the disadvantaged and provides little assistance for the community integration of the chronic mental patient. In considering mental health benefits under National Health Insurance we must be careful to avoid reinforcing these patterns. It is suggested that NHI include a mental health resource development fund intended for building a stronger network of community mental health care and that the pattern of insurance benefits under NHI be consistent with developing psychiatric services on a capitation basis.
Cost containment through reduction of insurance benefits and aggressive utilization review is increasingly risking the sacrifice of good clinical care in the pursuit of financial objectives. This article provides examples of judicial and legislative responses to perceived fiscal intrusions into clinical practice. Principles for asserting clinical goals in the cost containment process are also provided to assist in the inevitable negotiations and battles ahead.
In this study, the feasibility of a public-private long-term care (LTC) financing plan that would combine private LTC insurance with special Medicaid eligibility requirements was assessed. The plan would also raise the Medicaid asset limit from the current $2,000 to the value of an individual's insurance benefits. After using benefits the individual could enroll in Medicaid. Thus, insurance would substitute for asset spend-down, protecting individuals against catastrophic costs. This financing plan was analyzed through a computer model that simulated lifetime LTC use for a middle-income age cohort beginning at 65 years of age. LTC payments from Medicaid, personal income and assets, Medicare, and insurance were projected by the model. Assuming that LTC use and costs would not grow beyond current projections, the proposed plan would provide asset protection for the cohort without increasing Medicaid expenditures. In contrast, private insurance alone, with no change in Medicaid eligibility, would offer only limited asset protection. The results must be qualified, however, because even a modest increase in LTC cost growth or use of care (beyond current projections) could result in substantially higher Medicaid expenditures. Also, private insurance might increase personal LTC expenditures because of the added cost of insuring.
In 1974, approximately 28.4 million active workers participating in almost 52,000 health plans on their jobs were covered by in-hospital health insurance benefits. A survey of these plans, conducted for the Social Security Administration by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, revealed that not all workers are automatically entitled to benefits on the first day they report for work. More than three-fifths had to fulfill at least one job-related requirement before their hospital coverage was effective. The extent and variety of employment requirements in private industry are discussed here along with data that show how plans that have such requirements differ from those that do not.
Although numerous studies have established that breast cancer mortality can be significantly reduced through early detection, only a small percentage of women obtain screening mammograms at intervals recommended by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and other major medical organizations. This paper examines the importance of cost as a barrier to routine screening and the state legislative movement to make screening mammography a basic health insurance benefit. Mammography "knowledge, attitudes, and behavior" studies offer conflicting findings on the extent to which cost enters into the decision to have a mammogram. Women seldom report cost as a major reason for postponing or failing to have a mammogram; yet, descriptive studies show a consistently positive relationship between income and mammography use. State mammography reimbursement laws vary greatly with respect to whether screening mammography is a required or optional benefit, payment limits, and eligibility and referral requirements. Although state-specific data on the percentage of women with private health insurance are not available, 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey estimates for U.S. Census geographic divisions suggest that the New England, East North Central, West North Central, Middle Atlantic, and Mountain states have the highest percentages of women who are privately-insured and, thus, potentially eligible for legislated mammography benefits. Access to screening mammography also is likely to be influenced by the proportion of employer-sponsored health plans that are self-insured and, therefore, exempt from minimum benefit mandates and the extent to which women are aware of the screening coverage.