Challenges in securing access to care for children.
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Congressional approval of Title XXI of the Social Security Act, which created the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), is a significant public effort to expand health insurance to children. Experience with the Medicaid program suggests that eligibility does not guarantee children's enrollment or their access to needed services. This paper develops an analytic framework and presents potential indicators to evaluate CHIP's performance and its impact on access, defined broadly to include access to health insurance and access to health services. It also presents options for moving beyond minimal monitoring to an evaluation strategy that would help to improve program outcomes. The policy considerations associated with such a strategy are also discussed. (+info)
The privatization of health care in three Latin American social security systems.
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Most Latin American social security institutes are direct providers of medical care services to their beneficiaries. As many of the institutes have developed serious financial problems over the course of the last decade and a half, they have come under increasing attack for (a) exacerbating inequalities in access to and use of health care, (b) further heightening the geographic overconcentration of services, (c) focusing a disproportionate amount of resources on high technology, curative care to the near total exclusion of primary health care, and (d) being administratively top heavy and, more generally, inefficient. In the past few years, many Latin American countries have begun searching for methods to ameliorate these problems. This paper analyzes three recent efforts, all of which involve some degree of privatization: (1) El Salvador's partial privatization of specialty physician outpatient consultations, (2) Peru's minor surgery and its decentralized ambulatory care programme, and (3) Nicaragua's "administrative services only' approach wherein social security beneficiaries choose to join a certified public or private provider organization for one year, and, on behalf of the individual, social security pays the organization a fixed, annual, per capita fee to provide all health care for the enrollee. The paper also identifies political and technical considerations, as well as health care market characteristics that have shaped these efforts and that condition their likelihood of success, including: the size, composition, level of capacity utilization, degree of organization and geographic distribution of private sector resources; relative prices in the private vis-a-vis the public sector; and the size and nature of the private health insurance market. Other Latin American countries would do well to examine these factors and characteristics before embarking on efforts to reform their own social security health care delivery systems. (+info)
Improving access to disability benefits among homeless persons with mental illness: an agency-specific approach to services integration.
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OBJECTIVES: This study evaluated a joint initiative of the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to improve access to Social Security disability benefits among homeless veterans with mental illness. METHODS: Social Security personnel were colocated with VA clinical staff at 4 of the VA's Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) programs. Intake assessment data were merged with SSA administrative data to determine the proportion of veterans who filed applications and who received disability awards at the 4 SSA-VA Joint Outreach Initiative sites (n = 6709) and at 34 comparison HCHV sites (n = 27 722) during the 2 years before and after implementation of the program. RESULTS: During the 2 years after the initiative began, higher proportions of veterans applied for disability (18.9% vs 11.1%; P < .001) and were awarded benefits (11.4% vs 7.2%, P < .001) at SSA-VA Joint Initiative sites. CONCLUSION: A colocation approach to service system integration can improve access to disability entitlements among homeless persons with mental illness. Almost twice as many veterans were eligible for this entitlement as received it through a standard outreach program. (+info)
Health insurance and productivity.
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AIM: To provide a conceptual understanding of the basic relationship between health insurance and overall economic productivity, and to look at the human development index as a proxy for the quality of human capital. METHODS: Economic data and data related to human development in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, including Croatia, were compared to the European Union (EU) average. Data were selected out of databases provided by the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the United Nations. Income and growth rates were related to the EU averages. The human development index was used to compare the level of the average achievements in the longevity of life, knowledge, and quality of living in CEE countries. RESULTS: Relative to the EU-average, human development is lagging behind in CEE countries. Considering the world as a benchmark regarding human development, 8 out of 13 CEE countries exceed the world. However, all CEE countries have 3-28% lower human development than the industrialized countries. CONCLUSIONS: The specific challenge for transition countries is how to adopt strategies to translate economic progress into health and social gains through reliable institutions, among them social health insurance bodies. The institutions and the provision of social health insurance are particularly challenged at a turning point when transition in terms of macroeconomic stabilization, along with the consolidated organization and financing of social and health insurance schemes, is accommodated to a business cycle-driven market economy. (+info)
Enrollment in the State Child Health Insurance Program: a conceptual framework for evaluation and continuous quality improvement.
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Children's enrollment in the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a key indicator of program impact. Past studies demonstrate that many children eligible for Medicaid or for private employer-based insurance remain uninsured, indicating that eligibility does not guarantee either enrollment or access to medical care. Important features of SCHIP evaluation include not only eligibility thresholds and enrollment volume, but also program retention, transitions in coverage, and access to medical care. Focusing on SCHIP features that affect children's participation and continuity of coverage would allow states to continually improve procedures that affect enrollment. An exploration of federal and state policy options suggests several approaches for creating evaluation strategies that can stimulate ongoing improvement. (+info)
An increase in the number of deaths in the United States in the first week of the month--an association with substance abuse and other causes of death.
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BACKGROUND AND METHODS: There are regular changes in mortality rates, such as increased rates of death from influenza in the winter and from motor vehicle accidents on long holiday weekends. Previous research has shown that among persons with schizophrenia, the rates of cocaine use and hospital admissions increase at the beginning of the month, after the receipt of disability payments. Using computerized data from all death certificates in the United States between 1973 and 1988, we compared the number of deaths in the first week of the month with the number of deaths in the last week of the preceding month. RESULTS: The average number of deaths was about 5500 per day, or about 165,000 in a 30-day month. There were 100.9 deaths (95 percent confidence interval, 100.8 to 101.0) in the first week of the month for every 100 deaths in the last week of the preceding month. This was equivalent to about 4320 more deaths in the first week of each month than in the last week of the preceding month in an average year. Between 1983 and 1988, for deaths involving substance abuse and an external cause (such as suicides, accidents, and homicides), there were 114.2 deaths (95 percent confidence interval, 110.5 to 117.9) in the first week of the month for every 100 in the last week of the preceding month. There were significant increases in the number of deaths in the first week of the month for many causes of death, including substance abuse, natural causes, homicides, suicides, and motor vehicle accidents. CONCLUSIONS: In the United States, the number of deaths is higher in the first week of the month than in the last week of the preceding month. The increase at the beginning of the month is associated with substance abuse and other causes of death. (+info)
Unemployment, depression, and health: a look at the African-American community.
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OBJECTIVES: While the unemployment rate of African-American people is more than twice that of the white population, the research on the impact of unemployment on the health of this population is scarce. This study analysed the impact of unemployment on depression and well being among African-American people, and the factors associated with well being. METHODS: Logistic and multiple regression models were used to analyse panel data collected in the National Survey of Families and Households 1987-1992. African-American (1369) and white (6660) respondents were analysed separately. Outcome variables included an index of depression and self reported health status. MAIN FINDINGS: Differences between employment and unemployment groups were less significant for African-Americans than for the white population in predicting depression and well being. Health enhancing factors such as education and wealth were significantly associated with better health and lower depression indices among the white population but not consistently so among African-Americans. Satisfaction with personal relationships was the strongest predictor of well being for both groups. CONCLUSION: Research should focus on the special needs and circumstances of African-Americans, because protective factors may not have the same impact in different groups of the population. (+info)
New uses of legacy systems: examples in perinatal care.
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In this article, new uses of the Perinatal Information System at the Uruguayan Social Security health care facilities are described. The perinatal information system has been in place for over 13 years, with about 40 thousand clinical records on electronic files. A newly created Web interface allows a distributed access to existing perinatal information within the National Social Security Wide Area a Network. Perinatal data is also exported to a management information system, allowing to dynamically answer questions and make managerial decisions, and eventually link these data with other sources. Future steps regarding clinical information systems are outlined. (+info)