A description of outpatient drug use in rural China: evidence of differences due to insurance coverage

Occurrence and removal of antibiotics in ecological and conventional wastewater treatment processes: A field study

“…This is not surprising because two thirds of inpatients on average use antibiotics in China, which is significant higher than WHO guideline of 30% (Hu et al, 2003). Dong et al (1999) found out that 1.47 dose of antibiotics was prescribed to the patient after a random sample of 1320 rural outpatient visits in China, while only 15% of all outpatient visits in the US had an antibiotics prescription in 2001e2002 (Roumie et al, 2005). The high production and consumption of antibiotics would inevitably increase their concentrations in the WWTF influents.…”

Pharmaceutical supply chain in China: Current issues and implications for health system reform

“…During the 1990s, in rural health care facilities, about 70 percent of the outpatient care revenue and 55 percent of the inpatient care revenue were from drugs. In urban health care facilities, about 50 percent of the revenue was from drugs [14]. Fig.…”

“…According to patients' demands and also depending on whether they are insured, physicians prescribe and change prescriptions. A research investigation has found that insured patients have more expensive drugs, higher drug expenditure and medical expenditure per visit than uninsured patients [14]. Another comparison of village health stations with and without health insurance suggests a positive relationship between health insurance and opportunistic behaviour of health providers.…”

Active pharmaceutical management strategies of health insurance systems to improve cost-effective use of medicines in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review of current evidence

“…Much of the evidence comes from China, where health care institutions and providers rely on revenues from selling medicines at a profit. Studies there have shown that patients with FFS insurance have higher total medicines costs [66][67][68] and higher total medical costs [64] than uninsured patients. Similarly, South African doctors in a private FFS system were found to prescribe more medicines per visit and at a higher cost per medicine than those in the public sector [69].…”