Objective: To assess the proportion of population potentially excluded from healthcare coverage since the Royal Decree-Law 16/2012. To describe the use of health services, the distribution of chronic and infectious diseases, and the pharmaceutical costs in 2012 of the persons potentially excluded compared to the those who maintain their coverage.

Design And Setting: An observational analytical cross-sectional study was designed and conducted on a Primary Care based population in the Central Catalonia Management Area of the Institut Català de la Salut PARTICIPANTS AND MAIN MEASUREMENTS: Individuals potentially excluded since the application of the Royal Decree-Law 16/2012 were selected and compared with individuals who maintained their healthcare coverage, randomly matched by sex, age and Primary Care service. The information obtained included the use of health services, the distribution of chronic and infectious diseases, and the pharmaceutical costs during the year 2012.

Results: A total of 1,699 individuals were identified as potentially excluded from healthcare coverage, 0.53% of the total of population (51.4% men), with a median of age of 34years (interquartile range, 28-43). The use of healthcare services, the chronic morbidity recorded, and the pharmaceutical costs during the year 2012 of the excluded individuals was lower than those of the non-excluded ones (P<.001). On the other hand, the infectious morbidity was higher in the excluded individuals (P<.001).

Conclusions: The results of the study suggests that this legislative measure does not seem to be justified for medical or economic reasons. It could also cause public health problems and contribute to the risk of social fracture.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6983821PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aprim.2014.03.014DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

healthcare coverage
12
pharmaceutical costs
12
central catalonia
8
excluded healthcare
8
royal decree-law
8
decree-law 16/2012
8
health services
8
services distribution
8
distribution chronic
8
chronic infectious
8

Similar Publications

Background: Forecasting future public pharmaceutical expenditure is a challenge for healthcare payers, particularly owing to the unpredictability of new market introductions and their economic impact. No best-practice forecasting methods have been established so far. The literature distinguishes between the top-down approach, based on historical trends, and the bottom-up approach, using a combination of historical and horizon scanning data.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Health news refers to media coverage that informs the public about health-related issues, policies and healthcare systems, shaping public perception and understanding. While prior research has examined media's impact on public health behaviour, limited studies have focused on how perceptions of health news affect attitudes towards healthcare professionals, especially in the context of violence against them. This study addresses this gap, examining the mediating role perception of health news on the relationship between distrust in healthcare systems and intentions to use violence against healthcare professionals.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Previous studies have shown that people with multiple sclerosis (MS) had frequent healthcare visits up to 10 years before being diagnosed but with no information from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the connection with the radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS).

Objective: To analyze healthcare use 3 years before the RIS diagnosis.

Methods: We examined healthcare usage before the first scan in RIS cases from 2010 to 2019.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Health care is undergoing a "revolution," where patients are becoming consumers and armed with apps, consumer review scores, and, in some countries, high out-of-pocket costs. Although economic analyses and health technology assessment (HTA) have come a long way in their evaluation of the clinical, economic, ethical, legal, and societal perspectives that may be impacted by new technologies and procedures, these approaches do not reflect underlying patient preferences that may be important in the assessment of "value" in the current value-based health care transition. The major challenges that come with the transformation to a value-based health care system lead to questions such as "How are economic analyses, often the basis for policy and reimbursement decisions, going to switch from a societal to an individual perspective?" and "How do we then assess (economic) value, considering individual preference heterogeneity, as well as varying heuristics and decision rules?" These challenges, related to including the individual perspective in cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), have been widely debated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!