Fragmentation in organization and discontinuities in the provision of medical care are problems in all healthcare systems, whether it is the mixed public-private system in the USA, national health services in the UK, or insurance-based ones in Western Europe and Russia. In all of these...

The paper addresses the world-wide tendency of health care fragmentation and explores the ways how to overcome it. The international developments are discussed but the focus is on the health sector in the Russian Federation. The major objective of the paper is to evaluate the level of...

Policies promoting widespread adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) are premised on the hope that they can improve the coordination of care. Yet little is known about whether and how physician practices use current EMRs to facilitate coordination.

This paper investigates the consequences that patients face when their regular primary care provider closes down her practice, typically due to retirement. We estimate the causal impact of closures on patients' utilization patterns, medical expenditures, hospitalizations, and health plan choice....