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In this trial, eliminating copayments for medications after hospitalization for MI did not reduce the primary outcome (first major vascular event or revascularization) but did improve medication adherence and secondary outcomes, without significantly increasing total spending. The use of medications based on solid clinical evidence has contributed substantially to reductions in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. 1 , 2 For patients with acute myocardial infarction, prescribing of these highly effective therapies is now nearly universal at the time of hospital discharge in the United States, 3 , 4 but important gaps in care persist thereafter. Some patients never fill their first prescriptions, 5 and most have poor adherence to medication regimens over time. 6 Drug costs are central among the many factors that contribute to medication underuse. 7 , 8 A third of Americans report that they did not fill a prescription or reduced the . . .

Pay-for-performance in health care holds promise as a policy lever to improve the quality and efficiency of care. Although the approach has become increasingly popular in developing countries in recent years, most policy designs do not permit the rigorous evaluation of its impact. Thus, evidence of its effect is limited. In collaboration with the government of Ningxia Province, a predominantly rural area in northwest China, we conducted a matched-pair cluster-randomized experiment between 2009 and 2012 to evaluate the effects of capitation with pay-for-performance on primary care providers' antibiotic prescribing practices, health spending, outpatient visit volume, and patient satisfaction. We found that the intervention led to a reduction of approximately 15 percent in antibiotic prescriptions and a small reduction in total spending per visit to village posts-essentially, community health clinics. We found no effect on other outcomes. Our results suggest that capitation with pay-for-performance can improve drug prescribing practices by reducing overprescribing and inappropriate prescribing. Our study also shows that rigorous evaluations of health system interventions are feasible when conducted in close collaboration with the government. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Purpose To compare the total number of sick-leave days caused by the knee injury from the day of injury and over the first year between acute (within 8 days) and delayed (6–10 weeks) anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) and also assess other clinical outcomes during this period. Methods Seventy patients with an acute ACL injury and Tegner level of 6 or more were randomized to acute (within 8 days) or delayed (after 6–10 weeks) ACLR. Patient-reported outcomes; objective IKDC and manual stability measurements were assessed at 6 and 12 months. With data from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) information about the number of sick-leave days due to the knee injury over the following 12 months was collected and compared between the two groups. Results Seventy-one percent received compensation for sick leave (26 in the acute versus 23 in the delayed group). The mean number of sick-leave days for the acute group was significantly lower ( M  = 56.9, SD = 36.4) compared to the delayed group ( M  = 88.5, SD = 50.2), p  < 0.05. The acute group was also significantly stronger in flexion in both slow and fast angle velocities according to Biodex ® . No other differences were found between the groups in other clinical assessments or in terms of associated injuries. Conclusion Acute and delayed ACLR provided comparable clinical outcomes after 12 months. Acute reconstruction resulted in less sick-leave days and as such fewer indirect costs to the individual and society. These findings suggest that if patients requiring ACLR can be identified early and ACLR can be performed in the acute phase, socioeconomic costs can potentially be reduced by minimizing time off work. Level of evidence II.

To determine household and health-care provider costs associated with infection across a range of endemic settings. We collected cost data alongside three multicentre clinical trials of treatment in Afghanistan, Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Philippines, Peru, Thailand and Viet Nam conducted between April 2014 to December 2017. We derived household costs from trial participant surveys administered at enrolment and again 2 weeks later to determine the costs of treatment and transportation, and the number of days that patients and their household caregivers were unable to undertake their usual activities. We determined costs of routine care by health-care providers by micro-costing the resources used to diagnose and treat at the study sites. The mean total household costs ranged from 8.7 United States dollars (US$; standard deviation, SD: 4.3) in Afghanistan to US$ 254.7 (SD: 148.4) in Colombia. Across all countries, productivity losses were the largest household cost component, resulting in mean indirect costs ranging from US$ 5.3 (SD: 3.0) to US$ 220.8 (SD: 158.40). The range of health-care provider costs for routine care was US$ 3.6-6.6. The cost of administering a glucose-6-phosphate-dehydrogenase rapid diagnostic test, ranged from US$ 0.9 to 13.5, consistently lower than the costs of the widely-used fluorescent spot test (US$ 6.3 to 17.4). An episode of malaria results in high costs to households. The costs of diagnosing and treating are important inputs for future cost-effectiveness analyses to ensure optimal allocation of resources for malaria elimination.

Adherence to oral anticoagulant therapy in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) in China is low. Patient preference, one of the main reasons for discontinuation of oral anticoagulant therapy, is an unfamiliar concept in China. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted to quantify patient preference on 7 attributes of oral anticoagulant therapy: antidote (yes/no), food-drug interaction (yes/no), frequency of blood monitoring (no need, every 6/3/1 month[s]), risk of nonfatal major bleeding (0.7/3.1/5.5/7.8[%]), risk of nonfatal stroke (ischemic/hemorrhagic) or systemic embolism (0.6/3.2/5.8/8.4[%]), risk of nonfatal acute myocardial infarction (AMI) (0.2/1.0/1.8/2.5[%]), and monthly out-of-pocket cost (0/120/240/360 RMB) (0 to 56 USD). A total of 16 scenarios were generated by using D-Efficient design and were randomly divided into 2 blocks. Eligible patients were recruited and interviewed from outpatient and inpatient settings of 2 public hospitals in Beijing and Shenzhen, respectively. Patients were presented with 8 scenarios and asked to select 1 of 3 options: 2 unlabeled hypothetical treatments and 1 opt-out option. Mixed logit regression model was used for estimating patients' preferences of attributes of oral anticoagulants and willingness to pay (WTP) with adjustments for age, sex, education level, income level, city, self-evaluated health score, histories of cardiovascular disease/other vascular disease/any stroke/any bleeding, and use of anticoagulant/antiplatelet therapy. A total of 506 patients were recruited between May 2018 and December 2019 (mean age 70.3 years, 42.1% women). Patients were mainly concerned about the risks of AMI (β: -1.03; 95% CI: -1.31, -0.75; p < 0.001), stroke or systemic embolism (β: -0.81; 95% CI: -0.90, -0.73; p < 0.001), and major bleeding (β: -0.69; 95% CI: -0.78, -0.60; p < 0.001) and were willing to pay more, from up to 798 RMB to 536 RMB (124 to 83 USD) monthly. The least concerning attribute was frequency of blood monitoring (β: -0.31; 95% CI: -0.39, -0.24; p < 0.001). Patients had more concerns about food-drug interactions even exceeding preferences on the 3 risks, if they had a history of stroke or bleeding (β: -2.47; 95% CI: -3.92, -1.02; p < 0.001), recruited from Beijing (β: -1.82; 95% CI: -2.56, -1.07; p < 0.001), or men (β: -0.96; 95% CI: -1.36, -0.56; p < 0.001). Patients with lower educational attainment or lower income weighted all attributes lower, and their WTP for incremental efficacy and safety was minimal. Since the patients were recruited from 2 major hospitals from developed cities in China, further studies with better representative samples would be needed. Patients with AF in China were mainly concerned about the safety and effectiveness of oral anticoagulant therapy. The preference weighting on food-drug interaction varied widely. Patients with lower educational attainment or income levels and less experience of bleeding or stroke had more reservations about paying for oral anticoagulant therapies with superior efficacy, safety, and convenience of use.

We assessed aspects of Seguro Popular, a programme aimed to deliver health insurance, regular and preventive medical care, medicines, and health facilities to 50 million uninsured Mexicans. We randomly assigned treatment within 74 matched pairs of health clusters—ie, health facility catchment areas—representing 118 569 households in seven Mexican states, and measured outcomes in a 2005 baseline survey (August, 2005, to September, 2005) and follow-up survey 10 months later (July, 2006, to August, 2006) in 50 pairs (n=32 515). The treatment consisted of encouragement to enrol in a health-insurance programme and upgraded medical facilities. Participant states also received funds to improve health facilities and to provide medications for services in treated clusters. We estimated intention to treat and complier average causal effects non-parametrically. Intention-to-treat estimates indicated a 23% reduction from baseline in catastrophic expenditures (1·9% points; 95% CI 0·14–3·66). The effect in poor households was 3·0% points (0·46–5·54) and in experimental compliers was 6·5% points (1·65–11·28), 30% and 59% reductions, respectively. The intention-to-treat effect on health spending in poor households was 426 pesos (39–812), and the complier average causal effect was 915 pesos (147–1684). Contrary to expectations and previous observational research, we found no effects on medication spending, health outcomes, or utilisation. Programme resources reached the poor. However, the programme did not show some other effects, possibly due to the short duration of treatment (10 months). Although Seguro Popular seems to be successful at this early stage, further experiments and follow-up studies, with longer assessment periods, are needed to ascertain the long-term effects of the programme. Mexican Ministry of Health, the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico, and Harvard University Institute for Quantitative Social Science.

Out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for healthcare severely affect the current consumption, future health and earnings capacity of poor/underprivileged households and hence it is crucial for priority setting. This study assesses the variation in overall as well as disease-specific impoverishment impact of OOP payments between the regions experiencing different climate change risks, defined as high disaster-prone (HDP) areas and low-disaster-prone (LDP) areas, in Bangladesh. This paper estimated three poverty measures, such as poverty headcount, poverty intensity and normalized poverty gap for all ailments, catastrophic events, diseases types (communicable, non-communicable (NCDs), and accident and injury), illness conditions (acute and chronic) and hospitalization using 3,791 randomly selected rural households (1,203 from HDP and 2,588 from LDP areas) across the regions. Cost of basic need approach was used for estimating poverty line expenditure. About 13 percent households annually fall into poverty due to OOP outlays for healthcare. Despite having significantly (p-value≤0.01) less OOP payments (HDP areas: BDT 5,117; LDP areas: BDT5,811) the impoverishment impact of OOP payments for healthcare in HDP areas (16.5%) has substantially higher than LDP areas (11.3%). Population in HDP areas, especially char (river island; 19.55 percent) and haor (water submerged; 16.80 percent) are more susceptible to any level of OOP payments due to low level of earnings. Catastrophic healthcare expenditure (61.79%) and NCDs (14.29 percent) are exacerbating the poverty level in Bangladesh. Both absolute and relative average poverty gap are more widen in HDP than LDP areas due to catastrophic OOP outlays for healthcare. The impoverishment effect due to OOP payments for healthcare in both HDP and LDP areas are high, especially for NCDs and catastrophic healthcare expenditure. However, the situation is bit worse in HDP areas. Preventing the escalation of NCDs as well as catastrophic expenditure and hence reducing the level of impoverishment thereof call for restricting tobacco use, increasing physical activity, encouraging to intake healthy diets, ensuring food safety, controlling air pollution, and improving mental health. Moreover, government should give more emphasis, especially in the HDP areas, on making community clinics more functional through providing screening equipment and training to the Community Health Care Providers for early detection of NCDs, and ensuring availability of medicine all the time. Note that other than community clinics, there is little option for providing healthcare in HDP areas due to poor functionality of public facilities as well as lack of private facilities in HDP areas.

Financial barriers to accessing obstetric care persist in many low-resource settings. With increasing use of mobile phones, mobile money services appear as a promising tool to address this concern. Maternal health care is particularly suitable for a savings program using mobile money due to the predictable timing and costs of delivery. The mobile money-based Mobile Maternal Health Wallet (MMHW) intervention aimed to ease the burden of out-of-pocket expenses related to maternal health care by providing an accessible savings tool. This study aimed to assess the impact of the MMHW on maternal and neonatal health outcomes. We used a stratified cluster-randomized trial to assess the impact of the MMHW on maternal and neonatal health outcomes in the Analamanga region of Madagascar. All 63 eligible public sector primary care health facilities (Centres de Santé de Base [CSBs]) within 6 strata were randomized to either receive the intervention or not. We estimated intention-to-treat effects and contamination-adjusted effects following an instrumental variable approach. The primary outcomes included (1) delivery at a health facility, (2) antenatal care visits, and (3) total health care expenditure. Between March 2022 and December 2022, a total of 6483 women who had been pregnant between July 2020 and December 2021 were surveyed. Among women in catchment areas of treated CSBs, 38.79% (1297/3344) had heard of the MMHW, and 37.42% (485/1296) of them registered for the tool. There was considerable variation in uptake across treated CSBs. Descriptively, women in the catchment areas of treated CSBs were more likely to deliver in a facility and had more antenatal care visits and higher total health expenditures compared to women in control CSB catchment areas in the intention-to-treat and contamination-adjusted analyses. However, none of the effects were statistically significant. While this study did not identify a statistically significant impact, the estimated contamination-adjusted effects suggest that the MMHW has potential to improve access to maternal care for women who are receptive to such a mobile money-based savings tool. Estimated population-level effects were much smaller, and this study was underpowered to detect such effects due to lower-than-anticipated uptake of the intervention. German Clinical Trials Register DRKS00014928; https://www.drks.de/search/de/trial/DRKS00014928. RR2-10.1186/s13063-021-05694-8.

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND Patients at risk for generating high health care expenditures often receive fragmented, low-quality, inefficient health care. Guided Care is designed to provide proactive, coordinated, comprehensive care for such patients. OBJECTIVE We hypothesized that Guided Care, compared to usual care, produces better functional health and quality of care, while reducing the use of expensive health services. DESIGN 32-month, single-blind, matched-pair, cluster-randomized controlled trial of Guided Care, conducted in eight community-based primary care practices. PATIENTS The “Hierarchical Condition Category” (HCC) predictive model was used to identify high-risk older patients who were insured by fee-for-service Medicare, a Medicare Advantage plan or Tricare. Patients with HCC scores in the highest quartile (at risk for generating high health care expenditures during the coming year) were eligible to participate. INTERVENTION A registered nurse collaborated with two to five primary care physicians in providing eight services to participants: comprehensive assessment, evidence-based care planning, proactive monitoring, care coordination, transitional care, coaching for self-management, caregiver support, and access to community-based services. MAIN MEASURES Functional health was measured using the Short Form–36. Quality of care and health services utilization were measured using the Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care and health insurance claims, respectively. KEY RESULTS Of the eligible patients, 904 (37.8 %) gave written consent to participate; of these, 477 (52.8 %) completed the final interview, and 848 (93.8 %) provided complete claims data. In intention-to-treat analyses, Guided Care did not significantly improve participants’ functional health, but it was associated with significantly higher participant ratings of the quality of care (difference = 0.27, 95 % CI = 0.08–0.45) and 29 % lower use of home care (95 % CI = 3–48 %). CONCLUSIONS Guided Care improves high-risk older patients’ ratings of the quality of their care, and it reduces their use of home care, but it does not appear to improve their functional health.

Background Hypertension requires life-long medical care, which may cause economic burden and even lead to catastrophic health expenditure. Objective To estimate the extent of out-of-pocket expenditure for hypertension care at a population level and its impact on households' budgets in a low-income urban setting in Colombia. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional survey in Santa Cruz, a commune in the city of Medellin. In 410 randomly selected households with a hypertensive adult, we estimated annual basic household expenditure and hypertension-attributable out-of-pocket expenditure. For socioeconomic stratification, we categorised households according to basic expenditure quintiles. Catastrophic hypertension-attributable expenditure was defined as out-of-pocket expenditure above 10% of total household expenditure. Results The average annual basic household expenditure was US dollars at purchasing power parity (USD-PPP) $12,255.59. The average annual hypertension-attributable out-of-pocket expenditure was USD-PPP $147.75 (95% CI 120.93-174.52). It was incurred by 73.9% (95% CI 69.4%-78.1%) of patients, and consisted mainly of direct non-medical expenses (76.7%), predominantly for dietary requirements prescribed as non-pharmacological treatment and for transport to attend health care consultations. Medical out-of-pocket expenditure (23.3%) was for the most part incurred for pharmacological treatment. Hypertension-attributable out-of-pocket expenditure represented on average 1.6% (95% CI 1.3%-1.9%) of the total annual basic household expenditure. Eight households (2.0%; 95% CI 1.0%-3.8%) had catastrophic health expenditure; six of them belonged to the two lowest expenditure quintiles. Payments related to dietary requirements and transport to consultations were critical determinants of their catastrophic expenditure. Conclusions Out-of-pocket expenditure for hypertension care is moderate on average, but frequent, and mainly made up of direct non-medical expenses. Catastrophic health expenditure is uncommon and affects primarily households in the bottom socioeconomic quintiles. Financial protection should be strengthened by covering the costs of chronic diseases-related dietary requirements and transport to health services in the most deprived households. Abbreviations NCDs: Non-communicable diseases; LMICs: Low and middle-income countries; WHO: World Health Organization; HTN: hypertension; CVDs: Cardiovascular diseases; OOPE: out-of-pocket expenditure; USD-PPP: US dollars at purchasing power parity; CI: Confidence interval.