Regional Outlook

2021 ◽  
pp. 811-815
Author(s):  
Tamara Popic ◽  
Guergana Stolarov-Demuth
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
Unmet Need ◽  
Social Health Insurance ◽  
Social Health ◽  
Average Life Expectancy ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Out Of Pocket Payments ◽  
Health Related

The Southern Eastern Europe regional outlook presents a comparative assessment of the historical development of the healthcare system, health politics, and selected health-related indicators for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia. Despite variations in their healthcare systems during communism, since 1989 the countries of the region have all undertaken efforts to introduce or consolidate social health insurance and combine it with a mix of public and private provision. In most of the countries at least half of healthcare financing originates from compulsory contributory health insurance, but in many of them, out-of-pocket payments constitute an extremely large share. Given this financial burden, satisfaction in the region is very low. Health outcomes are unsatisfactory, with low average life expectancy, very high infant mortality, and relatively high levels of health inequality. Unmet need is high, especially in Romania, mainly due to costs. Since at least 2004, healthcare has tended to be a moderately salient issue in Southern Eastern Europe. The key healthcare issues in the region have been incomplete or ineffective social health insurance coverage, privatization, insufficient financing, and high out-of-pocket payments, especially for pharmaceuticals and private services.

scholarly journals Social health insurance for the poor: lessons from a health insurance programme in Karnataka, India

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. e000582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neeraj Sood ◽  
Zachary Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
Tertiary Care ◽  
Substantial Reduction ◽  
Unmet Need ◽  
Social Health Insurance ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Social Health ◽  
The Poor

Life-saving technology used to treat catastrophic illnesses such as heart disease and cancer is often out of reach for the poor. As life expectancy increases in poor countries and the burden from chronic illnesses continues to rise, so will the unmet need for expensive tertiary care. Understanding how best to increase access to and reduce the financial burden of expensive tertiary care is a crucial task for the global health community in the coming decades. In 2010, Karnataka, a state in India, rolled out the Vajpayee Arogyashree scheme (VAS), a social health insurance scheme focused on increasing access to tertiary care for households below the poverty line. VAS was rolled out in a way that allowed for robust evaluation of its causal effects and several studies have examined various impacts of the scheme on poor households. In this analysis article, we summarise the key findings and assess how these findings can be used to inform other social health insurance schemes. First, the evidence suggests that VAS led to a substantial reduction in mortality driven by increased tertiary care utilisation as well as use of better quality facilities and earlier diagnosis. Second, VAS significantly reduced the financial burden of receiving tertiary care. Third, these benefits of social health insurance were achieved at a reasonable cost to society and taxpayers. Several unique features of VAS led to its success at improving health and financial well-being including effective outreach via health camps, targeting expensive conditions with high disease burden, easy enrolment process, cashless treatment, bundled payment for hospital services, participation of both public and private hospitals and prior authorisation to improve appropriateness of care.

scholarly journals Effects of cancer treatment on household impoverishment: a multicentre cross-sectional study in China

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. e044322
Author(s):  
Wenqi Fu ◽  
Jufang Shi ◽  
Xin Zhang ◽  
Chengcheng Liu ◽  
Chengyao Sun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Cancer Treatment ◽  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Social Health Insurance ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Post Treatment ◽  
Social Health ◽  
Daily Consumption ◽  
Out Of Pocket Payments ◽  
Per Capita

ObjectivesTo determine the incidence and intensity of household impoverishment induced by cancer treatment in China.DesignAverage income and daily consumption per capita of the households and out-of-pocket payments for cancer care were estimated. Household impoverishment was determined by comparing per capita daily consumption against the Chinese poverty line (CPL, US$1.2) and the World Bank poverty line (WBPL, US$1.9) for 2015. Both pre-treatment and post-treatment consumptions were calculated assuming that the households would divert daily consumption money to pay for cancer treatment.ParticipantsCancer patients diagnosed initially from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2016 who had received cancer treatment subsequently. Those with multiple cancer diagnoses were excluded.Data sourcesA household questionnaire survey was conducted on 2534 cancer patients selected from nine hospitals in seven provinces through two-stage cluster/convenience sampling.Findings5.89% (CPL) to 12.94% (WBPL) households were impoverished after paying for cancer treatment. The adjusted OR (AOR) of post-treatment impoverishment was higher for older patients (AOR=2.666–4.187 for ≥50 years vs <50 years, p<0.001), those resided in central region (AOR=2.619 vs eastern, p<0.01) and those with lower income (AOR=0.024–0.187 in higher income households vs the lowest 20%, p<0.001). The patients without coverage from social health insurance had higher OR (AOR=1.880, p=0.040) of experiencing post-treatment household impoverishment than those enrolled with the insurance for urban employees. Cancer treatment is associated with an increase of 5.79% (CPL) and 12.45% (WBPL) in incidence of household impoverishment. The median annual consumption gap per capita underneath the poverty line accumulated by the impoverished households reached US$128 (CPL) or US$212 (WBPL). US$31 170 395 (CPL) or US$115 238 459 (WBPL) were needed to avoid household impoverishment induced by cancer treatment in China.ConclusionsThe financial burden of cancer treatment imposes a significant risk of household impoverishment despite wide coverage of social health insurance in China.

scholarly journals Impacts of the type of social health insurance on health service utilisation and expenditures: implications for a unified system in China

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 468-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Si Ying Tan ◽  
Xun Wu ◽  
Wei Yang
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Social Health Insurance ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Social Health ◽  
Service Utilisation ◽  
Provider Payment ◽  
Out Of Pocket Payments ◽  
The Impact

AbstractWhile moving towards unified social health insurance (SHI) is often a politically popular policy reform in countries where rapid expansion in health insurance coverage has given rise to the segmentation of SHI systems as different SHI schemes were rolled out to serve different populations, the potential impacts of reform on service utilisation and health costs have not been systematically studied. Using data from the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we compared the mean costs incurred for both inpatient and outpatient care under different health insurance schemes, and the impact of different SHI schemes on treatment utilisation and health care costs using a two-part model. Our results show that Urban Employee Medical Insurance, which offers the most generous benefits, incurs the highest total costs prior to reimbursement when compared to other SHI schemes. Our analysis also shows that utilisation of SHI did not show significant reduction in out-of-pocket payments for outpatients. We argue that, unless effective measures are introduced to deal with perverse provider payment incentives, the move towards a unified system with more generous benefits may usher in a new wave of cost escalation for health care systems in China.

scholarly journals Cost-effectiveness of timely versus delayed primary total hip replacement in Germany: A social health insurance perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruben E. Mujica-Mota ◽  
Leala K. Watson ◽  
Rosanna Tarricone ◽  
Marcus Jäger
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Total Hip Replacement ◽  
Hip Replacement ◽  
Social Health Insurance ◽  
Social Health ◽  
Health Related Quality ◽  
Related Quality ◽  
Health Related

Without clinical guideline on the optimal timing for primary total hip replacement (THR), patients often receive the operation with delay. Delaying THR may negatively affect long-term health-related quality of life, but its economic effects are unclear. We evaluated the costs and health benefits of timely primary THR for functionally independent adult patients with end-stage osteoarthritis (OA) compared to non-surgical therapy followed by THR after progression to functional dependence (delayed THR), and non-surgical therapy alone (Medical Therapy), from a German Social Health Insurance (SHI) perspective. Data from hip arthroplasty registers and a systematic review of the published literature were used to populate a tunnel-state modified Markov lifetime model of OA treatment in Germany. A 5% annual discount rate was applied to costs (2013 prices) and health outcomes (Quality Adjusted Life Years, QALY). The expected future average cost of timely THR, delayed THR and medical therapy in women at age 55 were €27,474, €27,083 and €28,263, and QALYs were 20.7, 16.7, and 10.3, respectively. QALY differences were entirely due to health-related quality of life differences. The discounted cost per QALY gained by timely over delayed (median delay of 11 years) THR was €1270 and €1338 in women treated at age 55 and age 65, respectively, and slightly higher than this for men. Timely THR is cost-effective, generating large quality of life benefits for patients at low additional cost to the SHI. With declining healthcare budgets, research is needed to identify the characteristics of those able to benefit the most from timely THR.

Umverteilungseffekte in der Finanzierung von Gesundheitsleistungen / Redistribution Effects of Health Care Financing

2007 ◽  
Vol 227 (5-6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Buchner ◽  
Rebecca Deppisch ◽  
Jürgen Wasem
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Health Care Systems ◽  
Health Care Financing ◽  
Social Health Insurance ◽  
Health Care Expenditures ◽  
Social Health ◽  
Financing System ◽  
Out Of Pocket Payments ◽  
Care Systems

SummaryHealth care systems are financed through a mixture of different components: taxes, contributions to social health insurance, premiums to private health insurance, out of pocket payments by patients. These components can be combined differently leading to specific effects of interpersonal redistribution. This can be compared between different countries. In such a comparison the redistributional impact of the German health care systems is rather regressive - which is basically caused by the opportunity for people with high income to leave social health insurance. In comparison to a health insurance system with risk rated premiums, financing of the German social health insurance leads to interpersonal redistribution from higher to lower income, from the young to the elderly, from healthy to sick and from singles to families with children. The pay-as-you-go character of the system leads especially in combination with an aging population and technological change to burden for future generations. In comparison to a system in which each region finances its own health care expenditures, there are also considerable interregional redistributions. The financing system in Germany is not conceptually consistent. Reform proposals (unified health insurance for all; flat rate premiums) tackle these inconsistencies.

scholarly journals Factors affecting the Utilization of Social Health Insurance by the General Population in Bhaktapur Municipality

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-48
Author(s):  
Punam Karanjit ◽  
Prajita Mali ◽  
Rakshya Khadka ◽  
Lisasha Poudel
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
General Population ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
Household Head ◽  
Social Health Insurance ◽  
Health Insurance Scheme ◽  
Social Health ◽  
Insurance Scheme ◽  
Factors Affecting

Introduction:  For the reduction of financial burden and to achieve universal health care, Government of Nepal launched a security program called as Social Health Insurance Program. This study aimed to find the factors associated with the utilization of the social health insurance scheme. Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in the Bhaktapur Municipality ward no 2. 422 households were chosen using systematic random sampling. Questionnaires were used to measure the factors affecting the utilization. The collected data was entered in Epidata and analyzed in SPSS version 16. The data were presented in the frequency and percentage. Bivariate analysis was done to identify factors utilizing social health insurance. Factors having p value less than 0.05 was taken as significantly associated. Multivariate analysis was done to examine the association between the outcome variables. Results: Almost half of the general population (42.4 %) were utilizing social health insurance scheme and reason for not utilizing includes lack of confidence in the scheme and the services of the scheme, followed by high premium cost. Age (p=0.044), occupation (p= 0.049), wealth quintiles (p=<0.001) were found to be significantly associated with utilization of social health insurance. Logistic regression analysis showed that the odds of enrollment among very rich population group were lower than the medium (AOR 0.550, 95% CI 0.305-0.993) and rich population (AOR 0.557, 95% CI 0.316-0.981). Conclusions: Multiple factors were found to be associated with the utilization of the health insurance scheme which includes age of the household head, occupation of the household head, economic status, availability of the drugs and charge paid during their visit in the health care services, behavior showed by the health care provider, confidence in the scheme, satisfaction in the services that have been providing and source of the information.

Bulgaria

2021 ◽  
pp. 816-856
Author(s):  
Guergana Stolarov-Demuth
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Social Health Insurance ◽  
Social Health ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Health Politics ◽  
Insurance System

This chapter provides an extended look at health politics and the compulsory health insurance system in Bulgaria. It traces the historical development of the Bulgarian healthcare system characterized by the introduction of social health insurance, which after the establishment of communist rule in Bulgaria after World War II was replaced with a state-run healthcare system. Starting in 1989, Bulgaria underwent a transition to democracy and free market economy. This triggered structural healthcare reforms, including the re-introduction of social health insurance with both public and private provision. However, as privatization was permitted without effective price control mechanisms and conditions for entry into the public insurance system, out-of-pocket payments became extensive, especially for pharmaceuticals. The main reform challenges have been to close the coverage gaps and secure sufficient financing by stipulating selective contracting with hospitals, strengthening the control on pharmaceuticals, and tightening the collection of insurance contributions. While political debates were initially structured along traditional left–right political party lines, since 2001 new center-right parties have shaped Bulgarian health politics. Nevertheless, the reform process still suffered from lack of continuity, and private interest groups have successfully blocked cost-containment policies.

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