BACKGROUND A growing number of developing countries are developing health insurance schemes that aim to protect households, particularly the poor, from financial catastrophe and impoverishment caused by unaffordable medical care. This paper investigates the extent to which patients suffering from chronic disease in rural China face catastrophic expenditure on healthcare, and how far the New Co-...

Abstract Background Catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) are out-of-pocket payments (OOP) that exceed a predefined percentage or threshold of household’s resources, usually 40 %, can push households into poverty in China. We analyzed the trends incidence and intensity, explored determinants, CHE, proposed policy recommendation to address CHE. Methods A unique 5-year national urban-rural panel...

BACKGROUND This study will provide detailed specification of those variables and determinants of unpredictable health expenditure in Iran, and the requirements to reduce extensive effects of the factors affecting households' payments for health and other goods and services inappropriately. METHOD This study aims to identify measures of fair financing of health services and determinants of fai...

This study explored catastrophic health expenditure in China, due to out-of-pocket payments for dental care, and its associated individual- and contextual-level factors. We pooled data from 31,566 adults who participated in the third National Oral Health Survey with province-level data from different sources. We defined catastrophic dental health expenditure (CDHE) as payments for dental servic...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis (TB) patients in China encounter heavy financial burdens throughout the course of their treatment and it is unclear how China's health insurance systems affect the alleviation of this burden under the integrated approach. This study aimed to measure reimbursement for TB services under the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) in rural China and to evaluate changes in cat...

BACKGROUND The prevalence and economic burden of chronic diseases are increasing worldwide. Nevertheless, little information is available on catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) associated with chronic diseases in Korea. This study explored the burden of household out-of-pocket health expenditures among the Korean population for different chronic diseases. METHODS This study was conducted u...

STUDY QUESTION How often does out-of-pocket payment (OPP) for assisted reproduction techniques (ART) with conventional ovarian stimulation result in catastrophic expenditure for households? SUMMARY ANSWER Catastrophic cost was a frequent event affecting 51% of the poorest study participants and one in five couples in total. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY There is increasing concern about catastrophi...

BACKGROUND China is actively promoting regulation of rare diseases, rare disease and orphan drugs have been formally incorporated into the national planning. However, few studies have been done to evaluate the affordability of rare disease patients in China. This study aims to provide policy recommendations for the establishment of social security mechanism for rare diseases in China, so as to ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the trend of catastrophic health expenses (CHE) for inpatient care in relation to the commencement of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) in rural China from 2003 to 2013, and the roles of NCMS in protecting affected households from CHE. METHODS We assessed the 10-year trend of the incidence and severity of CHE in rural households with hospitalised members using da...

BACKGROUND Monitoring the incidence and intensity of catastrophic health expenditure, as well as the impoverishing effects of out of pocket costs to access healthcare, is a key part of benchmarking Kenya's progress towards reducing the financial burden that households experience when accessing healthcare. METHODS The study relies on data from the nationally-representative Kenya Household Expe...