BACKGROUND Out-of-pocket expenditure to pay for health services could result in financial catastrophe. The purpose of this study was to identify the incidence and determinants of catastrophic out-of-pocket payments for healthcare in Colombia. The underlying hypotheses are that low-income and non-insured population in Colombia, and households living in isolated and high level of rurality regions...

Background One of the objectives of the health transformation plan (HTP) in Iran is to reduce out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for inpatient services and eradicate informal payments. The HTP has three phases: the first phase (launched in May 5, 2014) is focused on reducing OOP payments for inpatient services; the second phase (launched in May 22, 2014) is focused on primary healthcare (PHC) and the...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the effect of "Seguro Popular" (SP) on the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) and out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditure in the medium term. MATERIAL AND METHODS We used the 'Encuesta de Evaluación del SP' --SP Survey Evaluation-- (2005-2008). We analyzed the SP effect on the rural cohort during two years of follow-up (2006 and 2008) and in the urban coho...