A copublication with the Milbank Memorial Fund

Prevention is the best cure--or is it? As medical experts hammer home the importance of annual medical checkups and routine screening for everything from high blood pressure to cancer, Americans have come to believe that frequent screening tests are essential for saving lives. But just how effective are the tests that we have come to take for granted? In this provocative book, medical economist Louise Russell challenges the standard wisdom that more is necessarily better by examining three routinely administered tests--those designed...

In the six years since prospective payment was introduced, a substantial amount of evidence has accumulated about its effects. Russell looks at the major characteristics of the rate payment system, how it has changed the pattern of medical services, how these changes have affected the health of beneficiaries, and the system's effects on medicare outlays. She reviews what is known and what need to be learned to arrive at a valid assessment of the system. Moreover, she contributes to the larger debate on medicate by making what are frequently quite technical evaluations accessible to the...

A COMPLETE UPDATE AND REVISION OF THE CLASSIC TEXT
"At last, a manual of operations for comparing the cost-effectiveness of a preventive service with a treatment intervention." --American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Twenty years after the first edition of COST-EFFECTIVENESS IN HEALTH AND MEDICINE established the practical benchmark for cost-effectiveness analysis, this completely revised edition of the classic text provides an essential resource to a new generation of practitioners, students, researchers, and...