JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Urinary tract infection is among the most common reasons for an outpatient visit and antibiotic use in adult populations. The increasing prevalence of antibacterial resistance among community uropathogens affects the diagnosis and management of this clinical syndrome. ⋯ Immediate antimicrobial therapy with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, nitrofurantoin, or fosfomycin is indicated for acute cystitis in adult women. Increasing resistance rates among uropathogens have complicated treatment of acute cystitis. Individualized assessment of risk factors for resistance and regimen tolerability is needed to choose the optimum empirical regimen.
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An increasing number of hospitals have converted to for-profit status, prompting concerns that these hospitals will focus on payer mix and profits, avoiding disadvantaged patients and paying less attention to quality of care. ⋯ Hospital conversion to for-profit status was associated with improvements in financial margins but not associated with differences in quality or mortality rates or with the proportion of poor or minority patients receiving care.
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Recent governmental and private initiatives have sought to reduce health care costs by making health care prices more transparent. ⋯ Use of price transparency information was associated with lower total claims payments for common medical services. The magnitude of the difference was largest for advanced imaging services and smallest for clinical office visits. Patient access to pricing information before obtaining clinical services may result in lower overall payments made for clinical care.