This article examines issues on health care costs and describes measures taken by public districts to reduce spending. As in most companies in America, health plan designs in public districts are being changed to reflect higher out-of-pocket costs, such as higher deductibles on visits to providers, hospital stays, and prescription drugs. District…

Remedying childhood obesity cannot take place without first identifying relevant issues commonly influencing gatekeepers of food for children as well as the role modeling for encouraging or discouraging daily activities. Children cannot drive to the store, form grocery lists or complete menu management tasks without adult assistance. Excessive…

The paper aims to analyze the hospital inpatient care use and medical fee of people with ID co-occurring with schizophrenia in Taiwan. A nationwide data were collected concerning hospital admission and medical expenditure of people with ID (n = 2565) among national health insurance beneficiaries in Taiwan. Multiple regression analyses were…

Each year, the Foundation for Child Development (FCD) and the Child and Youth Well-Being Index Project at Duke University issue a comprehensive measure of how children are faring in the United States. The resultant NATIONAL Child and Youth Well-Being Index (CWI) is based on a composite of "28 Key Indicators of well-being that are grouped into…

Background: Psychological services are increasingly provided within a context in which third party payers impose limits on the number of sessions available to the client and therapist. Considerable research has addressed the effect of time limits on therapeutic outcomes, while effects on therapeutic process have received less attention. This…

The patients receiving treatment from a hospital need to interact with multiple entities when claiming reimbursements. The complexities of the medical service supply chain can be simplified with an electronic clearance management system that allows hospitals, medical insurance bureau, bank, and patients to interact in a seamless and cashless…

"Kids Share 2014: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2013," an eighth annual report, looks comprehensively at federal spending and tax expenditures on children. Total federal expenditures on children were up from 2012, but below spending in 2010. Broader budgetary forces will continue to restrict spending on children over…

The purpose of this study is to understand how selected insurance practitioners learn and developed in their practices setting. The selected insurance practitioners (collectively customer service representatives, insurance agents, and risk managers) are responsible for the counseling and placement of insurance products and the implementation of…

Objectives: Successful childhood obesity intervention models that build sustainable behavioral change are needed, particularly in low-income, ethnic minority communities disparately affected by this problem. Method: Families were referred to Taking Steps Together (TST) by their primary care provider if at least one child had a body mass index…

"Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2016" contains the Budget Message of the President, information on the President's priorities, and summary tables. The ideas offered by President Obama in this 2016 Budget are designed to bring middle-class economics into the 21st Century. They are intended to help working families…

This manual was designed primarily for use by individuals with developmental disabilities and related conditions. It is hoped that it is also useful for families, as well as service coordinators and providers who directly assist families and individuals with developmental disabilities. The main focus of this manual is to provide easy-to-read…

"Stress factor" is defined as any internal or external influence that makes it more difficult for a school or district to carry out its basic mission of providing a high quality education to all its students, as well as to ensure that its students succeed on state and federal accountability measures. This report identifies 11 such stress…

In a turbulent time, communities of practice (CoPs) have become an important mechanism to develop organizational learning. Because of the rapid changes of global market and population structure, organizations in the private sector keep examining their leaning processes to adjust themselves to different challenges. However, few studies try to…

Innovation has been part of The Economical Insurance Group (TEIG) throughout its 140-year history--its first insurance policy was written on a barn in Berlin, Ontario. Today, the company continues to pursue innovation through its leaders, utilizing a variety of programs to develop the talent needed to guide the 2,500-employee organization through…

All children, even the healthiest, have preventive and acute health care needs. Moreover, a growing number of children are chronically ill, with preventive, acute, and ongoing care needs that may be much more demanding than those for healthy children. Because children are unable to care for themselves, their parents are expected to provide a range…