Health care policy seeks to ensure that citizens are protected from the financial risk associated with needing health care. Yet rising health care costs in many countries are leading to a greater reliance on out-of-pocket (OOP) measures. This paper uses 2010 household survey data from seven countries to measure and compare the burden OOP expenses place on individuals. It compares countries base...

background measures taken over the past four years in greece to reduce pharmaceutical expenditure have led to significant price reductions for medicines, but have also changed patient cost-sharing rates for prescription drugs. this study attempts to capture the resulting increase in patients’ out-of-pocket (oop) expenses for prescription drugs during the 2011-2014 period.   methods the authors ...

Out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses for hospitalized patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) poses an economic challenge on affected household in the form of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE), distress financing and impoverishment. OOP Expenses data CLD from Bangladesh is scarce. This study aimed to estimate resulting CHE, impoverishment among CLD. cross-sectional was conducted conveniently sele...

BACKGROUND Bangladesh has a high proportion of households incurring catastrophic health expenditure, and very limited risk sharing mechanisms. Identifying determinants of out-of-pocket (OOP) payments and catastrophic health expenditure may reveal opportunities to reduce costs and protect households from financial risk. OBJECTIVE This study investigates the determinants of high healthcare expe...

This paper studies the impact of health insurance on individual out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditure in China. Using the China Health and Nutrition Survey data between 1991 and 2006, we apply two-part and sample selection models that address key empirical challenges: censored data and selection on unobservables. We find that although the probability of positive OOP health expenditures increas...

BACKGROUND Out-of-pocket (OOP) medical expenses often lead to catastrophic expenditure and impoverishment in low- and middle-income countries. Yet, there has been no systematic examination of which specific diseases and conditions (e.g., tuberculosis, cardiovascular disease) drive medical impoverishment, defined as OOP direct medical costs pushing households into poverty. METHODS We used a co...

BACKGROUND Significant health expenses can force households to reduce consumption of items required for daily living and long-term well-being, depriving them of the capability to lead economically stable and healthy lives. Previous studies of out-of-pocket (OOP) and other health expenses have typically characterized them as "catastrophic" in terms of a threshold level or percentage of household...

BACKGROUND Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are becoming a major source of the national disease burden in Myanmar with potentially serious economic implications. METHODS Using data on 5484 households from the World Health Survey (WHS), this study assessed the household-level economic burden of two chronic conditions, angina and asthma, in Myanmar. Propensity score matching (PSM) and coarsened...

This master thesis examines the impact of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) on rural residents' out-of-pocket medical expenses (OOP) in China. The thesis first uses quantitative methods to identify the statistical relationships between NCMS and rural OOP and finds that enrolling in NCMS is associated with higher OOP. Then, using the 2009 reform, also known as Healthy China 2020, as a st...

BACKGROUND Generic-only pharmacy benefits may present more of a burden to patients with chronic disease conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), where generic drug therapy choices are more limited. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the strategies that elderly patients with COPD use to manage their out-of-pocket (OOP) prescription expenses in a generic-only pharmacy benefit compare...