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At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed2003

Tuberculosis control in Samara Oblast, Russia: institutional and regulatory environment.

SETTING: Tuberculosis control programme in Samara Oblast, Russia, funded in part by the government of the United Kingdom. OBJECTIVE: To identify and evaluate institutional and regulatory influences as well as incentives and disincentives that might be amenable to change in the promotion of the DOTS strategy. DESIGN: Multidisciplinary situational analysis through in-depth interviews of stakeholders and review of official federal and oblast documents. RESULTS: Interpretation of traditional notification data is complex because classification and reporting systems differ from World Health Organization principles. Regulations governing financing encourage lengthy hospitalisations and interventions, and provide few incentives to shift policy to ambulatory care. CONCLUSION: Accurate comparability of epidemiological trends and programmatic successes requires equivalent classification and reporting systems. If the DOTS strategy is to be sustainable, changes to financing systems will be needed.

Federal Government↗
PubMed1998

The public sector and mental health parity: time for inclusion.

BACKGROUND: In the United States, there is an uneasy division of responsibility for financing mental health care. For most illnesses, employer-sponsored health insurance and the large federal health insurance programs (Medicare, Medicaid) cover the costs of care. However, most employer-sponsored plans and Medicare provide only limited coverage for treatment of mental illness. A possible cause and result of this limited coverage in mental health is that states, and in some cases local (county) governments, finance a separate system of mental health care. This separate "public mental health system" provides a "safety net" of care for indigent individuals needing mental health care. However, there are potential negative consequences of maintaining separate systems. Continuity of treatment between systems may be impaired, and costs may be higher due to duplicate administrative costs. Maintaining a separate system managed by government may exacerbate the stigma associated with mental illness treatment. Most significantly, since eligibility for care may be linked to poverty status, and since having a serious mental illness may preclude regaining private coverage, maintaining a separate system may contribute to the poverty rate among persons with mental illnesses. AIMS OF THE PAPER: These potential problems have not been widely considered, perhaps because other problems and controversies in mental health care have captured our attention. In particular, controversies over deinstitutionalization in mental health have dominated the policy debate, especially when linked to related problems. These have included conflicts over authority and financial responsibility among federal, state and local governments, sensationalized media coverage of incidents involving people with mental illness, problems with siting community facilities, concern about mental illness among prisoners and the like. However, with the substantial reform of public mental health care in some states and localities, it is now possible to consider the implications of public and private integration. This paper considers such an approach. METHODS: This paper addresses the question of public and private integration, considering the state of Ohio as a case study. Ohio is a large state (population 11.2 million) and shares demographic, cultural and political characteristics with many other states. Ohio's successful experience implementing community mental health reform makes it a good candidate to use in evaluating issues in the potential integration of insurance-paid and public mental health care. RESULTS: The analysis indicates that the resources now used in Ohio's public system may be sufficient to support insurance financing of inpatient and ambulatory mental health treatment (the types of health care usually paid by insurance) while maintaining supportive services (e.g. housing, crisis care) as a residual safety net. DISCUSSION: At the current time, these resources are in state and local mental health budgets, and in the Medicaid program that finances health care for low income and disabled individuals. The analysis indicates that the aggregate level of resources expended on inpatient and ambulatory mental health treatment are substantially greater than expenditures for such care in an insurance plan for Ohio State employees. A substantial limitation of the analysis is that it is not possible to compare the need for care in a relatively healthy employed population versus a poor and disabled population. CONCLUSION: The paper concludes that there are substantial structural, economic and social problems associated with the "two-tiered" system of commercial/employer-paid insurance and public mental health care in the United States. Examining data from one state's public system, the paper further concludes that it might be feasible to finance a single system of acute and ambulatory mental health benefits, if public resources were redeployed and private contributions were continued. IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND RESEARCH: Given the substantial problems associated with the two-tiered American approach to mental health care, further consideration and analyses of the feasibility of public and private integration are suggested. Given the complexity of this effort, much more sophisticated analysis is needed. However, given the possibility that sufficient resources may now be available to accomplish integration, further work is suggested.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1993

Universal access to health care: a practical perspective.

Policy disconnected from economic reality is bad policy. Neither government financed health insurance nor an employer mandated health insurance approach are in the national interest. Higher national priorities compel a reallocation of resources from consumption to investment. This need not, however, cause an abandonment of efforts to deal with the problems of the uninsured and other health reforms. Successful health care reform is achievable provided it is responsive to higher priorities for economic growth. A strong economy and the production of wealth are indispensable to economic justice. Toward this end, a program of universal access is proposed whereby families and individuals are required to pay for their own health insurance up to a fixed percentage of disposable personal income before public payments kick in. Government's chief role is to establish a standard package of cost-effective benefits to be offered by all insurance carriers, the cost of which is approximately 40 percent less than conventional insurance coverage because of the elimination of reimbursement for clinically non-efficacious and cost-ineffective services. Public financing is relegated to a residual role in which subsidies are targeted on the needy. Much of the momentum for cost control is transferred to consumers and private insurers, both of whom acquire a vested interest in obtaining value for money. Uniform rules for underwriting, eligibility, and enrollment practices guard against socially harmful practices such as experience rating and exclusion of preexisting conditions. The household responsibility and equity plan described herein could free up as much as $90 billion or more for public investment in economic growth and national debt reduction while assuring access to health care regardless of ability to pay. Economic revitalization will be assisted by changes in household savings. With health care no longer a free good and government social programs concentrated on the truly needy, individual propensity to save will increase, thereby enlarging the pool of capital for financing investments in economic growth. Putting more responsibility for health care financing on households with an ability to pay also serves to reinforce and expand the work ethic. Privatizing responsibility by severing health insurance from the workplace connection improves the geographic and occupational mobility of labor, diminishes employer tendencies to discriminate against hiring the disabled and older employees, and eliminates a major source of labor unrest.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Community Participation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

NYC public hospitals.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Economics, Hospital↗
PubMed1997

Surgery in India.

Surgical practice in India is mostly managed by the central and state governments and is totally government financed, offering free medical aid. However, with the economic growth and affluence of the middle-class population in urban areas, more and more hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics managed by the private sector are arising in cities and towns. Privately owned hospitals are built and managed by large industrial houses and trusts. It is essential, according to government directives, for these hospitals to have certain numbers of general beds that will provide for the economically weaker sections of the population. Medical insurance is popular amongst the urban population; in addition to well-established insurance companies, many new medical service reimbursement organizations are forming. Surgical care standards are uniformly high in the larger teaching institutions and hospitals run by the private sector in major cities in India, in which superspecialty surgical care that meets worldwide standards is available in addition to general surgical care. These hospitals are manned by surgeons holding master's degrees in general surgery, superspecialties, and subspecialties. In the hospitals and dispensaries in rural areas, only basic surgical facilities are available; for major surgical procedures, the patients are referred to the closest urban hospitals. Therefore, the government of India is placing more and more emphasis on building hospitals that offer better surgical facilities away from the cities and towns. A diploma course in surgery is run by the National Board of Surgery, and these diplomates are encouraged to practice more in rural areas and small hospitals. Economic constraints and the population explosion are the biggest hurdles to progress in surgical care, teaching, and research activities. With the advancement in education and growth of the economy, more and more multinationals are walking into the field of medical care, which is proving to be a great boon and providing a rapid increase in the health care expansion in this country. The World Health Organization and the World Bank are providing considerable aid for disease prevention, health care provision, and research activities.

Education, Medical↗