Many patients find that their out-of-pocket costs of medications are burdensome. Physicians can help, first by remembering to ask about the problem, and then by applying simple strategies to limit the patient's costs.

Background: Out-of-pocket payments for medical services may undermine access to and equity in healthcare financing. Objectives: The present study aimed determine the distribution of burden out-of-pocket among households Qazvin province, Iran. Methods: This descriptive-analytical was conducted on urban rural Iran during 2019 - 2020. Data were obtained from Statistics Center (2019 2020). optimal ...

BACKGROUND Direct out-of-pocket (OOP) payment is the most inequitable way to pay for healthcare services, and this trend exposes patients and their families to backbreaking financial risks. The aim of this study was to estimate the out-of-pocket expenditures for outpatient imaging services in Imam-Khomeini Hospital in Tehran. METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014 on 100 use...

BACKGROUND Inequality in health services access and utilization are influenced by out-of-pocket health expenditures in many low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Various antecedents such as social factors, poor health and economic factors are proposed to direct the choice of health care service use and incurring out-of-pocket payments. We investigated the association of these factors with ou...

Vietnam aims to achieve full coverage of health insurance in 2015. An increasing type of health insurance in Vietnam is voluntary health insurance. Although there are many studies on the implementation of voluntary health insurance in Vietnam, little is known on the causal impact of voluntary health insurance. This paper measures the impact of voluntary health insurance on health care utilizati...

OBJECTIVE To identify the main drivers of costs of facility delivery and the financial consequences for households among rural women in Tanzania, a country with a policy of delivery fee exemptions. METHODS We selected a representative sample of households in a rural district in western Tanzania. Women who given birth within 5 years were asked about payments for doctor's/nurse's fees, drugs, n...