BACKGROUND The increasing health expenditure for general practitioners (GPs) in Denmark requires that other ways of financing the health system are investigated. This study aims to analyse possibilities for implementing out-of-pocket payments to GPs in Denmark. METHODS The study was conducted as a literature review with 11 articles included. The Health Policy Triangle and the Kingdon Model we...

The countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States differ substantially in their post-Soviet economic development but face many of the same challenges to health and health systems. Life expectancies dropped steeply in the 1990s, and several countries have yet to recover the levels noted before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Cardiovascular disease is a much bigger killer in the Common...

BACKGROUND Evidence is emerging on the cost-effectiveness, quality and health coverage of social franchises. But little is known about the motivations of providers to join or remain within a social franchise network, or the impact that franchise membership has on client volumes or revenue earnings. METHODS (i) Uncontrolled facility based of a random sample of 230 franchise members to assess s...

Countries with universal or near universal access to healthcare have health financing mechanisms which are single-payer systems in which either a single autonomous public agency or a few coordinated agencies pool resources to finance healthcare. This contributes to both equity in healthcare as well as to low levels of poverty in these countries. It is only in countries like India and a number o...

BACKGROUND In recent years, cases of breast cancer have been on the rise in Vietnam. To date, there has been no study on the financial burden of the disease. This study estimates the direct medical cost of a 5-year treatment course for women with primary breast cancer in central Vietnam. METHODS Retrospective patient-level data from medical records at the Hue Central Hospital between 2001 and...

Although universal health coverage (UHC) is a global health policy priority, there remains limited evidence on UHC reforms in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This paper provides an overview of key insights from case studies in this thematic series, undertaken in seven LMICs (Costa Rica, Georgia, India, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Thailand) at very different stages in the transition...

Access to public services is not equally distributed in Iran (1). This general rule also includes the access to health care services as the distribution of facilities is unequal skewed in terms of geographic location (2). The success of national development programs largely depends on success of health sector in achieving its objectives, and proper utilization of health care services in differe...

BACKGROUND During the last two decades, the trend of out-of-pocket payments (OOP) for health services by Iranian households has been a matter of concern and it has exposed a significant proportion of them to catastrophic and impoverishing health expenditures. OBJECTIVES The current study aimed to investigate three objectives: First, the mean of out-of-pocket payments among Iranian households ...

BACKGROUND To promote skilled attendance at births and reduce maternal deaths, the government of Ghana introduced the free maternal care policy under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2008. The objective is to eliminate financial barriers associated with the use of services. But studies elsewhere showed that out of pocket (OOP) payments still exist in the midst of fee exemptions. T...

Background: Out-of-pocket and informal payments are considered as 2 most important topics for equity in health care financing. Therfore, this study was conducted to systematically review and meta-analyze the status of these payments in Iran's health care system. Methods: Required data were collected through searching the following key terms: "Unofficial", "Informal Payment", "Iran", "Health Fin...