Universal health coverage in a regional Nepali hospital: who is exempted from payment?
نویسندگان
چکیده
This study assessed the characteristics of beneficiaries of a government-led policy of exemption for payment being provided in a regional hospital in Nepal. In January and February 2012, 9547 patients sought services at the out-patient clinic, the majority (83%) of whom were from the same district although this was a referral hospital for 15 districts. Only 10.8% received exemption from payment; 66% of the individuals aged >60 years and eligible for exemption were missed. These shortcomings highlight intrinsic weaknesses in the current implementing mechanisms for payment exemption, which may not be providing financial protection. This hampers efforts towards achieving universal health coverage.
منابع مشابه
Access to free health-care services for the poor in tertiary hospitals of western Nepal: a descriptive study.
BACKGROUND Nepal is an underdeveloped country in which half of the total health expenditure is from out-of-pocket payments. Thus, the Government of Nepal introduced universal free health-care services up to the level of district hospitals, and targeted these services to poor and marginalized people in regional and subregional hospitals. The aim of this descriptive study was to explore the imple...
متن کاملState budget transfers to Health Insurance Funds for universal health coverage: institutional design patterns and challenges of covering those outside the formal sector in Eastern European high-income countries
INTRODUCTION Many countries from the European region, which moved from a government financed and provided health system to social health insurance, would have had the risk of moving away from universal health coverage if they had followed a "traditional" approach. The Eastern European high-income countries studied in this paper managed to avoid this potential pitfall by using state budget reven...
متن کاملIs It More Important to Address the Issue of Patient Mobility or to Guarantee Universal Health Coverage in Europe?; Comment on “Regional Incentives and Patient Cross-Border Mobility: Evidence From the Italian Experience”
This paper discusses whether European institutions should devote so much attention and funding to cross-border healthcare or they should instead prioritise guaranteeing universal health coverage (UHC), inequalities and tackling the effects of austerity measures. The paper argues through providing the evidence in both areas of research, that the priority at European level from a public health an...
متن کاملPolicy Choices for Progressive Realization of Universal Health Coverage; Comment on “Ethical Perspective: Five Unacceptable Trade-offs on the Path to Universal Health Coverage”
In responses to Norheim’s editorial, this commentary offers reflections from Thailand, how the five unacceptable trade-offs were applied to the universal health coverage (UHC) reforms between 1975 and 2002 when the whole 64 million people were covered by one of the three public health insurance systems. This commentary aims to generate global discussions on how best UHC can be gradually achieve...
متن کاملUniversal Health Coverage and Primary Healthcare: Lessons From Japan; Comment on “Achieving Universal Health Coverage by Focusing on Primary Care in Japan: Lessons for Low- and Middle-Income Countries”
A recent editorial by Naoki Ikegami has proposed three key lessons from Japan’s experience of achieving virtually universal coverage with primary healthcare services: the need to integrate the existing providers of primary healthcare services into the organised health system; the need to limit government commitments to finance hospital services and the need to empower providers of primary healt...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
عنوان ژورنال:
- Public health action
دوره 3 1 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2013