Publications by authors named "N Kontodimopoulos"
As early as 1978, the World Health Organization set primary healthcare as the basis on which health systems should be built worldwide. However, the health systems of the different countries show considerable variations in terms of the implementation of gatekeeping from primary to secondary healthcare and direct access to specialists and hospital care. This literature review attempts to present the gatekeeping system with references to the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany compared to the situation in Greece, where no gatekeeping system exists.
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- The paper reviews various cost containment policies aimed at controlling pharmaceutical spending by either regulating the industry or influencing consumer demand.
- A narrative literature review highlights that governments have adopted diverse strategies like cost-sharing, value-based pricing, and the promotion of generics, but their effectiveness varies between healthcare systems and can negatively affect patients.
- The conclusion emphasizes the need for thorough evaluation of these policies to ensure their success, as many lack strong evidence of cost-effectiveness and suggest that further research is essential to create tailored solutions that maintain affordability, fairness, and sustainability in healthcare.
Article Synopsis
- The study examines unmet dental needs in Greece before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, finding a decrease in unmet needs from 23.1% before the pandemic to 13.4% after.
- During the pandemic, 48.3% of participants reported not needing dental care, with many avoiding visits even when they had symptoms.
- Reasons for unmet dental needs included costs and fear of treatment before the pandemic, while after the pandemic, added concerns included lack of time and fear of virus transmission.
Background/objectives: The cost resulting from peritoneal dialysis (PD), conventional hemodialysis (HD) and online hemodiafiltration (OL-HDF) in pediatric patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) has not been estimated to date in Greece. The present single-center retrospective study aimed to estimate the mean annual cost of the above methods, as well as the individual components of this cost.
Methods: Twenty pediatric patients undergoing the three different methods of renal replacement therapy were included in this study.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate and illustrate the effectiveness of a specialized digital platform developed to improve the accuracy of medical coding during the full implementation of Greece's new DRG system, and to highlight innovative actions for achieving and/or improving accurate medical coding. Already grouped DRG cases recorded in the first DRG implementation year in the region of Crete were examined. A sample of 133,922 cases was analyzed and audited, through a process consisting of three stages: (i) digitalization, (ii) auditor training, and (iii) control and consultation.
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