Journal profile · HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES
Health Services Insights
ISSN 1178-6329 · SAGE Publishing · United Kingdom
Health Services Insights: CAS Zone 3 · Medicine (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 2.1 (journal website); fully open access; APC about USD 2,000; median 168 days to acceptance (98 articles, last 24 months); 89 articles in 2025; indexed in ESCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Health Services Insights is published by SAGE Publishing and is in Zone 3 of Medicine in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Global Maternal and Child Health, Healthcare Policy and Management and Healthcare Systems and Reforms, together about 28.1% of its articles. Its main subfields are General Health Professions. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Health Services Insights is an open access, peer reviewed international journal that focuses on improvement of healthcare services through the analyses of costs, quality, and access in health care. View full journal description This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES
Editorial board by country: 5 in mainland China (about 8%); most named South Africa 8, United States 7, Mainland China 5, United Kingdom 5, Italy 5 (61 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Global Maternal and Child HealthMedicine10.4%
- Healthcare Policy and ManagementEconomics, Econometrics and Finance9.3%
- Healthcare Systems and ReformsEconomics, Econometrics and Finance8.4%
- Geriatric Care and Nursing HomesHealth Professions7.7%
- Primary Care and Health OutcomesHealth Professions5.9%
- Patient Satisfaction in HealthcareHealth Professions5.5%
- Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of LifeEconomics, Econometrics and Finance4.4%
- Global Health Care IssuesHealth Professions4.4%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Health Care Sciences & Services | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Health Care Sciences & Services | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
Database indexing
ESCIScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 2.1Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher)
- 3.4Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 3.6LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.73LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.12LetPub ·
- h-index
- 37OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 153OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 1.98OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 4.8%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 84LetPub ·
- Articles per year (publisher)
- 3Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 589 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 76 | 76 | 4 |
| 2025 | 89 | 89 | 175 |
| 2024 | 85 | 85 | 315 |
| 2023 | 90 | 90 | 527 |
| 2022 | 54 | 54 | 905 |
| 2021 | 67 | 67 | 1,051 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with PubMed · to
168 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 134 days – 197 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 22 days (98 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 196 days
- Sample
- 98 articles with submission and acceptance dates (182 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 8 weeksLetPub ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 8 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | USD 2,000 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC | |
| OpenAlex | USD 2,000 | — | — | |
| LetPub | USD 2,000 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | USD 2,400 | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
Article types accepted9, with length limits
- commentaryded or discussed in the original paper. Commentary material may be peer-reviewed at the editor’s discretion Word limit: 1500 Word count includes abstract/refere…main text ≤ 1,500 words
- letter to the editorA letter to the Editor is a brief communication that addresses the contents of a published article. Its purpose is to make corrections, provide alternative view…Length not stated
- meta-analysisView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Manuscript types eligible for submission are described below. Please be certain to review the sect…Length not stated
- registered reportView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Manuscript types eligible for submission are described below. Please be certain to review the sect…Length not stated
- registered reports – post-dataRegistered Reports – Post-Data, i.e., before already existing data have been examined and analysed.Length not stated
- registered reports – pre-dataRegistered Reports – Pre-Data, i.e., before any data have been gatheredLength not stated
- research articleView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Manuscript types eligible for submission are described below. Please be certain to review the sect…Length not stated
- reviewView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Manuscript types eligible for submission are described below. Please be certain to review the sect…Length not stated
- systematic reviewView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Manuscript types eligible for submission are described below. Please be certain to review the sect…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Data availability, Publication ethics, Open access, Peer review, Plagiarism, Preprints, Trial registration / reporting guidelines
- Authorship Author contributions
You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability Data availability
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages. Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to: Share your research data in a relevant public data repository Include a data ava…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Publication ethics Ethical considerations
COPE member Model summary
Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Publishing fees and open access
Health Services Insights is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. All accepted articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication, are published under a Creative Commons license, and hosted online in perpetuity. If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable to cover the cost of publishing, paid by the …
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Single anonymized peer review Model summary
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal: Identity transparency: Single Anonymized Reviewer interacts with: Editor Review information published: None Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejec…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Plagiarism Plagiarism
The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprints
The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers. Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission. Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Trial registration / reporting guidelines Clinical trial registration
The journal conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first participant enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- SAGE Publishing
- Country or region
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 1178-6329
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗LetPub
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Health Services Insights
What CAS zone is Health Services Insights in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Health Services Insights is in Zone 3 of Medicine, and in Zone 4 of the minor category Health Care Sciences & Services. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Medicine. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Health Services Insights?
The journal's website gives an impact factor of 2.1; this is the journal's own figure, as LetPub lists none for it; CiteScore 3.6, h-index 37.
How long does peer review take at Health Services Insights?
Based on the dates recorded on 98 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 168 days (interquartile range 134–197 days); authors report an average review time of about 8 weeks. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
Where are the editorial board members of Health Services Insights based?
Of the 61 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 5 (about 8%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are South Africa (8), United States (7) and Mainland China (5). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Health Services Insights?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Health Services Insights is indexed in ESCI, Scopus and DOAJ.
Is Health Services Insights open access, and what is the APC?
Health Services Insights is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 2,000.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, DOAJ, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-25). Last updated: .