Objective: To describe the cost savings achieved in a health maintenance organization (HMO)-sponsored primary care-based case management and disease management programs. Methods: The HMO-sponsored programs recruited patients in the primary care setting and relied on clinical guidelines and...

Disease management has been marketed by healthcare industry providers as a way of improving resource allocation in healthcare and containing costs. However, to achieve improved efficiency in healthcare requires the guidelines and protocols in the disease management process to be based on sound...

Objective: To investigate the cost effectiveness of adding the beta-blocker bisoprolol to standard treatment in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). Design and setting: A cost-effectiveness study was based on the Cardiac Insufficiency Bisoprolol Study II (CIBIS-II), a randomised...

Over the last two decades the incidence of congestive heart failure (CHF) has increased with aging of the population and in spite of the decline in age-adjusted mortality rates due to coronary heart disease. Its management has seen substantial progress, embodied in the introduction of ACE...

Cost containment in pharmaceutical benefits plans is often controversial because of its potential for unintended effects on health and overall expenditures. Thorough evaluations are needed to support benefits plans in developing evidence-based policies. Evaluations of income-based deductibles...

The American healthcare market is currently estimated at more than $US900 billion with double digit rising costs per year. Psychotropic agent costs have more than kept pace with market increases. Medication acquisition costs are an obvious focus for limiting costs in various care systems....

Pharmaceutical expenditure is rising more rapidly than the general inflation rate in most advanced countries. One strategy that has been introduced to control pharmaceutical costs is reference-based pricing (RBP). Its potential is restricted to those specific segments of the drug market where...

Introduction: Provisions in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 directed the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, formerly the Health Care Financing Administration) to begin focusing attention on the standardized measurement of health outcomes of Medicare beneficiaries as well as...