Background: Supplemental health insurances (SHI) cover 38% of the Danish population. SHI can give faster access to, and additional treatment from, private health providers. However, this is contingent on a referral from the general practitioner (GP), further complicating clinical decision-making.
Objectives: To describe GPs' attitudes to SHI and their experiences with patients holding SHI. Moreover, we analysed associations between different GP characteristics; e.g. gender, age, practice type, own SHI status and their attitudes to and experiences with SHI.
Methods: A questionnaire was mailed to 3321 GPs focusing on three issues: (i) Attitudes towards the public health care system. (ii) Perceptions of the impact of SHI. (iii) Experiences with patients holding SHIs.
Results: The response rate was 64%. Overall, GPs found that SHIs contribute to inequality (83%) and overtreatment (90%). However, 46% often feel under pressure to refer SHI patients to specialist care, even though not medically indicated, while 11% always or often refer SHI patients unconditionally. Both groups perceive SHI patients more insistent on getting referrals than patients without SHI.
Conclusion: Even though a majority of GPs associate SHI with overtreatment and inequality in health, many GPs feel under pressure to refer patients holding SHI for treatments or examinations that are not medically warranted. Some GPs even refer these patients without further examination or questioning. Insistent SHI patients may partly explain this paradox. Future research should illuminate SHI patients' courses in the private as well as the public healthcare system with regards to medical indications and health outcome measures focusing on inequality and overtreatment.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cmx035 | DOI Listing |
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces
January 2025
School of Biological Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong 999077, China.
Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death among all gynecological malignancies, and drug resistance renders the current chemotherapy agents ineffective for patients with advanced metastatic tumors. We report an effective treatment strategy for targeting metastatic ovarian cancer involving a nanoformulation (Bola/IM)─bola-amphiphilic dendrimer (Bola)-encapsulated imatinib (IM)─to target the critical mediator of ovarian cancer stem cells (CSCs) CD117 (c-Kit). Bola/IM offered significantly more effective targeting of CSCs compared to IM alone, through a novel and tumor-specific β-catenin/HRP2 axis, allowing potent inhibition of cancer cell survival, stemness, and metastasis in metastatic and drug-resistant ovarian cancer cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancer Immunol Immunother
January 2025
Department of Respiratory Medicine and Allergology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
Introduction: Compared to platinum-based therapies, a combination of ipilimumab (anti-CTLA-4) and nivolumab (anti-PD-1) has demonstrated improved outcomes in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), albeit with higher rates of immune-related adverse events (irAEs). This multicenter retrospective study evaluated the efficacy and safety of nivolumab and ipilimumab with or without chemotherapy (NI and NICT) in real-world clinical settings.
Methods: We enrolled 215 treatment-naïve NSCLC patients who received NI or NICT between December 2020 and May 2023 at 14 institutions in Japan.
Alzheimers Dement
December 2024
School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Background: Cognitive decline represents a significant and gradual clinical manifestation in individuals affected by Alzheimer's disease (AD). Currently, there is a lack of effective treatments to delay its progression. Quantitative genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have yielded limited insights into progression traits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimers Dement
December 2024
Department of Neurosurgery, Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Background: This study identifies and quantifies diverse pathological tau forms in the retina at both early and advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and assesses their correlation with disease status. In the pathogenesis of AD, the tau protein undergoes post-translational modifications, including hyperphosphorylation (p-tau). As the disease progresses, pathological tau can propagate as oligomers, aggregate into fibrils, and paired helical filaments (PHF), and ultimately form intraneuronal neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimers Dement
December 2024
Peking University Institute of Mental Health (Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China.
Background: The Hong Kong Brief Cognitive Test (HKBC) has solved the problems of limited population, insufficient coverage of cognitive domains and copyright limitation of previously used cognitive function test tools, which has a preliminary research basis for promotion. To make HKBC more widely used, it is necessary to collect normative data from different regions to make it have reference standards.
Method: From September 2019 to December 2021, 2312 aged 40 years and older people were recruited from different regions of China as norm construction participants.
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