Prepaid System Research Articles

Evidence-based HMO care for prostate specific antigen testing.

There is pressure in the U.S. system to move away from fee-for-service models to a more pre-paid system, which may result in decreased costs, but the impact on evidence-based care is unclear. We examined a large pre-paid Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) in Israel to see if evidence-based guidelines are followed for prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing. A retrospective cohort of ambulatory visits from 2002 to 2011 of patients age >75 receiving care from Clalit Health Services was conducted. Historically reported U.S. cohorts were used for comparison. The main measure was the percent of patients who had at least one PSA after age 75. In each of the 10 years of follow-up, 22% of the yearly Israeli cohort, with no known malignancy or benign prostatic hyperplasia, had at least one PSA, while for the total 10 years, 30% of the men had at least one PSA. These rates are considerably lower than previously reported U.S. rates. In a pre-paid system in which physicians have no incentive to order tests, they appear to order PSA tests at a lower rate than has been observed in the U.S. system. Additional quality of measures should continue to be examined as the U.S. shifts away from a fee-for-service model. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Control of cervical cancer in Peru: Current barriers and challenges for the future.

Cervical cancer is the leading malignant neoplasm in Peruvian women. This malignancy is a public health problem and several efforts were previously performed to develop cancer control plans. Geographical, cultural, structural, infrastructural and procedural barriers can limit the implementation of such strategies. Several previous studies have characterized human papilloma virus (HPV) epidemiology, where prevalence of high-risk HPV in adult females is ~12% and the prevalence in cervical cancer is 90–95%. The predominant barriers for the control of cervical cancer are lack of specialists in remote villages, education/cultural issues, loss of patients in follow-up, lack of access to HPV testing and lack of compliance for HPV vaccination. A good strategy for the prevention and early detection of high-risk HPV, pre-malignant neoplasms and cervical cancer, identified by interventional studies, is the self-sampling test, which assists with overcoming the cultural and geographic barriers. The current cancer control plan, termed ‘Plan Esperanza’, is performed with massive training of health professionals and social sensitization campaigns leading to filling the gaps regarding education and, in addition, it provides cancer care coverage for poorer individuals. In our experience at Oncosalud-AUNA, with a cohort of ~750,000 affiliates using a pre-paid system with annual screenings for cervical cancer for women, offered free-of-charge, a lower incidence of this malignancy (5.8/100,000) is now observed compared with the national incidence (32.7/100,000). As in other countries, the HPV vaccination can be a cost-utility strategy to reduce the high burdens of cervical cancer in Peru, a rapid and cheap HPV molecular sub-typification is rapidly required.

GSM BASED PREPAID ENERGY METER

In recent years many attempts have been made to design the energy meter with instant billing technique but till now the designed energy meters are not efficient and do not provide replacement. Now-a-days the numbers of Electricity consumers are increasing in great extent. It is hard to handle and maintain the power due to growing requirements. Maintenance of the power is an important task as the human operator goes to consumer’s house and produces the bill as per the meter reading. This paper presents a prepaid energy meter to facilitate energy consumption measurement and to know consumer’s maximum demand. The prepaid energy meter concept is shown by Proteus software simulation. The major components are Arduino microcontroller, Voltage and Current transformer, LCD, Relay and a load. Electricity has become one of the basic requirements for people and widely used for domestic, industrial and agricultural purposes The energy billing system used nowadays are lab our and time consuming. Errors are inevitable at every stage of billing, some are human errors while noting down the meter readings, errors while processing the paid bills and the due bills. There is no proper way to know the consumer's maximum demand, usage details. This paper demonstrates the use of prepaid energy meter system. If we use this system it will be beneficial for the consumer to manage power. It is easy to operate and cost effective. Another advantage of the prepaid system is that the human errors in taking meter readings and processing bills can be reduced to a large extent.

The business of distributed solar power: a comparative case study of centralized charging stations and solar microgrids

How can distributed solar power best meet the energy needs of nonelectrified rural communities? In collaboration with a local technology provider, we conduct a techno‐economic comparison of three different models of distributed solar power in rural India. We compare a centralized charging station with two solar microgrids, one based on prepaid electricity purchases and the other on a fixed monthly fee. Customers report higher levels of satisfaction and fewer technical problems with the microgrids, but the capital cost of the microgrids is much higher than that of the centralized charging station. The prepaid system exhibits poor economic performance because the customers spend very little money on electricity. These results suggest that new business models and technological innovations are needed to strike the right balance between customer needs and commercial viability. WIREs Energy Environ 2016, 5:640–648. doi: 10.1002/wene.209This article is categorized under: Photovoltaics > Economics and Policy Solar Heating and Cooling > Economics and Policy Energy Research & Innovation > Systems and Infrastructure

Perancangan Sistem Informasi Prepaid di Perusahaan Makanan Siap Saji XYZ

Prepaid System becomes a new trend in the Indonesia retail industry, particularly in the Food and Beverage (F&B) sector. Many companies are trying to develop their own prepaid system, however they still lack of skills and knowledge regarding this system. This condition might not enable them to deliver the prepaid system to customers properly if they insist to develop their own system. However, this does not happen to company XYZ, the biggest fast food restaurant in Indonesia. Company XYZ, which collaborates with the local partner, implements their own prepaid system in their company. This local partner has already had years of experience in the payment industry, developing payment system that adapts to the latest technology and supports the company's business. A system that is integrated with the point-of-sales and website would absolutely help customer and cashier in doing the transaction process. Integrated data is very useful for the finance and accounting departments of Company XYZ providing annual financial report to the shareholders.

Application of NFC Technology for Cashless Payment System in Canteen

In a campus community, mostly is younger people andstay in University hostel without cooking facilities then have to getfrom canteen for foods and beverages. In office hour with limitedbreak time either breakfast or lunch everyone is rushing to get foodand crowded situation are happen. One of the issues is paymentsystem use manually (cash) and queue at the cashier to pay foods,sometime need to wait a few minute until to get the turn. Cashlesspayment such as token or credit system is implementing in some ofrestaurant and food courts but does not applicable in Universitycanteen that most of customers are students with small transaction,only a few dollars and cents. Nowadays, mobile phone or smartphone is not a luxury thing and most of student carries it for phonecall, message, email, or browsing internet. Most of smart phone alsoembedded with Near Field Communication (NFC) reader inside thephone, thus by using this phone with NFC enable to do paymentsystem at the canteen. The credit is deducted from mobile phonebalance for pre-paid system or billed in monthly for postpaid andthis system have working together to the cellular phone operator.Confirmation on payment system is shows whether customerapprove payment or not then a notification is sent to user.With thissystem be able to overcome several issues such as queue at cashierfor payment and risk of student to carry cash money while buyingfoods.

Irrigation Management Reform in Northern China: Case Studies in Shanxi Province

AbstractIrrigation in northern China is exposed to declining groundwater resources and institutional issues. As a response, authorities have developed measures that include differentiated resource allocation and charging, collective and individual water rights, a block pricing system, prepaid access to water, and real‐time monitoring of resource and use. This paper analyses this alternative management model and its implications at the farm and system levels, using institutional, technical and economic analyses of case studies from Qingxu County, northern China.The results show that the prepaid system helps solve cost‐recovery, free‐riding, agency and resource overuse problems. All water fees are prepaid, therefore fully collected. However, while most operation and maintenance costs are covered, personnel costs are covered in only one case, due to low water fees. The agency problem is also addressed by the continuous monitoring of water resources. Water use value is high compared to actual water fees, owing to high maize yields and reasonable use of supplemental irrigation. This indicates potential for a water price increase, if needed. This paper shows that the new management system at the county level epitomizes China's whole rural financial reform and the realignment of local water institutions with public administrative layers. It finally discusses achievements, pending questions and limitations for long‐term impacts. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

IJARCCE - Computer and Communication Engineering

In our India, there is lot of use of electricity in many different sectors and areas. This paper is based on prepaid system not postpaid as like existing system. First consumer pays for electricity and then use power for domestic and commercial purpose. Today's Energy Meter system is a complex and something headache process due to calculating and distributing bills. In Existing System, Meter readers have to go every home to home and take reading and paying bills is a post-paid system. To minimize complexity in calculating and distributing bills and misuse of electricity are the main purpose of this project .It is indirectly affect to avoid illegal activities like power theft.In our proposed system, there is use of GSM technology.With the help of GSM technology, consumer get warning alarm and messages on mobile about minimum amount and for next recharge. LCD shows total balance, remaining balance and used power.

Cryptographic Theory Meets Practice

We propose a new lightweight cryptographic payment scheme for transit systems, called P4R (Privacy-Preserving Pre-Payments with Refunds), which is suitable for low-cost user devices with limited capabilities. Using P4R, users deposit money to obtain one-show credentials, where each credential allows the user to make an arbitrary ride on the system. The trip fare is determined on-the-fly at the end of the trip. If the deposit for the credential exceeds this fare, the user obtains a refund. Refund values collected over several trips are aggregated in a single token, thereby saving memory and increasing privacy. Our solution builds on Brands’s e-cash scheme to realize the prepayment system and on Boneh-Lynn-Shacham (BLS) signatures to implement the refund capabilities. Compared to a Brands-only solution for transportation payment systems, P4R allows us to minimize the number of coins a user needs to pay for his rides and thus minimizes the number of expensive withdrawal transactions, as well as storage requirements for the fairly large coins. Moreover, P4R enables flexible pricing because it allows for exact payments of arbitrary amounts (within a certain range) using a single fast paying (and refund) transaction. Fortunately, the mechanisms enabling these features require very little computational overhead. Choosing contemporary security parameters, we implemented P4R on a prototyping payment device and show its suitability for future transit payment systems. Estimation results demonstrate that the data required for 20 rides consume less than 10KB of memory, and the payment and refund transactions during a ride take less than half a second. We show that malicious users are not able to cheat the system by receiving a refund that exceeds the overall deposit minus the overall fare and can be identified during double-spending checks. At the same time, the system protects the privacy of honest users in that transactions are anonymous (except for deposits) and trips are unlinkable.

Cost-benefit analysis of craniocerebral surgical site infection control in tertiary hospitals in China.

Surgical site infection (SSI) is one of the most common postoperative complications. This study aimed to determine the cost of SSIs and to evaluate whether SSI control can reduce medical costs under the current medical payment system and wage rates in China. Prospective surveillance of craniocerebral surgery was conducted between July 2009 and June 2012. SSI patients and non-SSI patients were matched with a ratio of 1:2. Terms such as medical costs and length of hospital stay were compared between the two groups. Based on the economic loss of hospital infection, which causes additional expenditures and a reduction in the number of patients treated, the benefits of hospital infection control were estimated. The costs of human resources and materials of hospital infection surveillance and control were also estimated. Finally, the cost-benefit rates in different medical contexts and with different SSI-case ratios were calculated. The incidence of SSIs in this study was 4%. SSIs significantly prolonged hospital stay by 11.75 days (95% CI: 6.24-22.52), increased medical costs by US $3,412.48 (95% CI: $1,680.65-$5,879.89). The direct economic loss was $114,903 in a 40-bed ward. The cost of implementing infection control in such a unit was calculated to be approximately $5,555.47 CONCLUSIONS: Under the current fee-for-service healthcare model in China, the control of SSIs can hardly yield direct economic benefits, but can yield social benefits. With the implementation of a total medical cost pre-payment system, SSI control will present a remarkable benefit-cost ratio for hospitals.

Assessing catastrophic and impoverishing effects of health care payments in Uganda.

BackgroundDirect out-of-pocket payments for health care are recognised as limiting access to health care services and also endangering the welfare of households. In Uganda, such payments comprise a large portion of total health financing. This study assesses the catastrophic and impoverishing impact of paying for health care out-of-pocket in Uganda.MethodsUsing data from the Uganda National Household Surveys 2009/10, the catastrophic impact of out-of-pocket health care payments is defined using thresholds that vary with household income. The impoverishing effect of out-of-pocket health care payments is assessed using the Ugandan national poverty line and the World Bank poverty line ($1.25/day).ResultsA high level and intensity of both financial catastrophe and impoverishment due to out-of-pocket payments are recorded. Using an initial threshold of 10% of household income, about 23% of Ugandan households face financial ruin. Based on both the $1.25/day and the Ugandan poverty lines, about 4% of the population are further impoverished by such payments. This represents a relative increase in poverty head count of 17.1% and 18.1% respectively.ConclusionThe absence of financial protection in Uganda’s health system calls for concerted action. Currently, out-of-pocket payments account for a large share of total health financing and there is no pooled prepayment system available. There is therefore a need to move towards mandatory prepayment. In this way, people could access the needed health services without any associated financial consequence.

Interval transportation problem in urban region

The unit transportation cost is not fixed in urban region but there are available certain types of vehicles in prepaid system, depending on the distance from source to destination. In this paper we represent a transportation problem with interval source and interval demand but interval of unit transportation cost is determined depending on the prepaid costs of single trip of N-number of vehicles. The limits of the transportation costs are determined by our proposed algorithm. Then an uncertain multi-level programming model is developed for such a type of transportation problem. By another proposed algorithm convert it a multi-objective crisp model. Then solve this model by fuzzy programming technique. A numerical example is presented.

Who chooses prepaid dental care? A baseline report of a prospective observational study.

BackgroundAn optional capitation prepayment system has been implemented in Swedish dental care, supplementary to the traditional fee-for-service scheme within the Public Dental Service. The implementation of a new system may have a variety of preferred and adverse effects, arguably dependent on the individual patient’s attitudes, health beliefs and course of action.The aim of this study was to describe potential differences regarding socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, perceived oral health and attitudes towards oral health between patients in the two payment systems.MethodsQuestionnaire data were consecutively collected from 13,719 patients, who regularly attended 20 strategically selected clinics within the PDS in Region Västra Götaland, before they were offered the choice between the traditional and the new payment system.ResultsCapitation patients were more often female and well educated. They had healthier habits, were more motivated to follow self-care advice, more often judged their oral health to be very good and considered oral health to be very significant for their wellbeing. The results were statistically significant and described a gradient.ConclusionsThe more explicitly affirmative the answer, the more likely the patient was to choose the prepayment scheme. There appears to be a pattern of differences with respect to important individual views on oral health between patients choosing a capitation system or a fee-for-service system. These differences may be important when assessing outcomes in the new payment system and in public dental care.

E-Pay Malaysia: the next 10 years

Subject area Topics covered by the case include: strategic management processes; and strategies, especially of a platform business. Study level/applicability The case is suitable for use in final-year undergraduate business/management degree programs and MBA or MSc in Management programs. The case can be utilized in courses such as strategic management and management of innovation. For MBA and MSc in management programs, the case can also be utilized in organization theory and design and organizational management, or any courses that cover topics of strategic management and management of innovation. Case overview By December 2010, the e-Pay terminal system was one of the most successful payment platforms in Malaysia. This business, which was launched in 1999, was an electronic prepaid mobile phone reload value distribution system known as e-Pay; it contributed about 80 per cent of the company's annual revenue. Over the past 10 years, e-Pay's terminal system had evolved into a comprehensive payment platform serving many providers on one side and end customers on the other side. However, since the past two years, the company has been facing pressures from their biggest customers on the provider side of its platform, the three giant telecommunication companies (telcos), which had moved to directly deliver reload values to their prepaid subscribers, bypassing e-Pay as the payment intermediary. On the customer side, the number of prepaid subscribers switching to postpaid services was increasing, and this threatened e-Pay's main source of revenue in the prepaid market. In response to this, the company added new service providers to its platform and launched multi-functional cashier machines with reload credits facility. By December 2010, as the market sunk into subscription saturation, the two founders of the company became deeply concerned about the company's future. They wondered if the problems would hinder their company from becoming a dominant payment player in Asia. This case presents an opportunity to discuss strategic posturing of a payment platform company operating in a mobile phone market which was mainly controlled by the telecommunication companies. Expected learning outcomes Understanding of strategic management process and related analysis enable case analysts to apply these concepts in many business situations involving strategy formulation and implementation. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email: support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

APLIKASI SMART CARD PADA METERAN AIR DIGITAL PRABAYAR BERBASIS ARDUINO MEGA 2560

Adhila Rafik, Yuniarto, in paper smart card application in prepaid digital water meter based on arduino mega 2560 explain that water is a daily necessity, to get a decent clean water to be used, we can use the services of the service taps to get water, but the post-pay payment method used taps raises its own problems, namely the problem of payment arrears. To resolve the issue of payment methods can be converted to a prepaid system, so the use of water dilakuakn after the user makes a payment in advance, many prepaid methods, one of which is the smart card is a plastic card in which there is a microcontroller chip that makes it possible to encrypt the data that there didalamya so not just anyone can read and menulisa data into the card, the use of smart cards as a payment method for a digital prepaid water meter taps, can overcome the problem of payment arrears. Because the use of RFID technology allows the User just close the smart card reader to its user. Keywords: smart cards, prepaid, RFID

An OCR System for Numerals Applied to Energy Meters

This work describes a prototype of an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) system designed for reading digits of power measurement devices, using Artificial Neural Networks. The motivation for this work is the implementation of an alternative automatic measurement system to be used in a prepaid power system - SEPPRA. Prototype software using Computer Vision techniques and pattern recognition through Neural Networks is implemented in the C++/Windows platform. Considering this application, adaptive threshold methods are compared in order to choose the more appropriated algorithm of binarization. Several algorithms are implemented and evaluated under different conditions of zoom and camera focus. The system works satisfactorily and can be carried to other platforms, making possible its production in commercial scale.

Switching from Post-paid to Pre-paid Models: Customer Perception and the Organisational Role in Managing the Change: A Case Study of Botswana Power Corporation

This case study examined the perceptions of the consumers after the switch over from post-paid to pre-paid electricity billing model by Botswana Power Corporation and at different parameters that measure the satisfaction of customers on the utility service provided by service providers. The study also focused on customer perception on how the Botswana Power Corporation managed the change with a view to see whether the overall satisfaction had increased or decreased. A non-probability type of sampling was used and questionnaires were used as data collection instrument. The findings indicate that the customers have embraced the pre-paid billing system and that they have recognized the benefits of conversion to the pre-paid model. The positive perception on the prepaid system requires that the Botswana Power Corporation should make certain that quality service, better network, and regular check on the meters are carried out to ensure that the positive perception is maintained at the highest level. It is also recommended that in future, changes should be communicated to the customers on time to address any possible negative perception about the change and to ensure customer buying-in to the changes beforehand.

The Development of Flow Controller Based on RF Card

An IC card controller based on the low-power microprocessor MSP430F1611 and RF card operation module YMG600 is developed to construct the flow prepayment system for the existing flowmeters. Considering the compatibility with the original system, the hardware with multiple interfaces is put forward on the analysis of output signal of the widely used flowmeters. It is focused on the realization of the flow signal processing circuits and IC card management module. In order to improve the safety of the system, the 3DES algorithm is adopted to encrypt the flow data. Furthermore, a linkage mechanism between the IC card controller and computer monitoring system is put forward to realize the real-time monitoring. Finally a serial of tests including flow sample and billing, it shows that the controller is characterized with good compatibility, high safety and practicability.

SJSN HEALTH REVIEW WITH FAMILY DOCTOR SERVICES

National Social Assurance System (NSAS) has been valid from January 1, 2014 , with PT.ASKES as the Health Social Assurance Agency. The Preparation to welcome the validity of the National Social Assurance System (NSAS) has been doing. Until now the regulation of laws has not come yet to the procedures and technical guidelines. The health services on NSAS primary physician that is comprehensive became a choice by applying the pattern of health care family physician. Based on the regulation of laws, reference books, seminar materials and especially experience as a general practice physician who served patients with pre-paid system for almost 15 years, providing input like problems that can arise and the alternative solutions in order to support NSAS work better, maintained the quality and continuity, seeking the least possible service problems especially on the family physician service

Customers’ Perceptions on ESKOM’s Pre-Paid Billing System and the Effects on Their Satisfaction and Trust

Despite the increasing awareness of the paramount importance of customer satisfaction and trust in the context of large firms, research efforts focused on the investigation of the role of electricity pre-paid system performance on customer satisfaction and trust have largely remained scant, particularly in developing countries of Southern Africa. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to fill this void. Three research hypotheses are posited and a sample data of 151 collected from ESKOM company’ electricity pre-paid system customer is used to empirically test the hypotheses. The results of this study show that, the performance of the ESKOM prepaid billing system positively influences the customers’ satisfaction and trust in a significant way. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed and limitations and future research directions are indicated. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n9p119