This book provides an overview of a wide range of healthcare payment systems. It compares cost-based systems, charge-based payment approaches, and contractually-based payment processes to fee-schedule payment systems and prospective payment systems. It covers claim adjustment and compliance as...

During the next decades the populations of most developed countries will grow older as a result of the low level of birth rates since the 1970s and/or the continuously increasing life expectancy. We show within a Generational Accounting framework how unsustainable the public finances of France,...

In times of ever-rising health expenditures it is becoming more and more obvious that conventional models for funding health care are increasingly experiencing difficulties in meeting up this challenge. The concept of Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) represents an innovative and so far rarely...

Health and health care in America : an introduction -- The business side of health care -- The payment process : insurance and third-party payers -- The payment process : government payment programs -- Health care providers : physicians and nurses -- Other clinical and non-clinical health care...