Evaluation of government subsidy policy and the role of health insurance in covering thalassemia, hemophilia and dialysis patients

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Health Economics, Shahed University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

2 Health Information Technology, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Background and Objective: Health system reforms in countries are carried out with the aim of increasing public access and quality of medical services, ensuring justice in health services and fair use of medical services. The aim of theis study was to evaluate the impact of social and economic variables on household and catastrophic health costs of families of special patients. It also examined the state of justice using the fair financial participation index in the country.
Materials and Methods: This research was descriptive-analytical. Data were collected randomly and cross-sectional in Tehran province from 296 patients with special needs in 3 disease groups (dialysis, hemophilia and thalassemia). The measurement tool is a standard questionnaire. Fair participation index, the ratio of families of special patients and exposure to catastrophic and poor health costs were calculated and in order to respond to the social and economic variables of household and catastrophic health costs, multiple linear regression model and data analysis with software were used. Excel and Eviews10 are done.
Results: The percentage of exposure to debilitating and impoverishing expenses with thresholds of 40% ability to pay is equal to 12/5%. In addition to its increase, the reduction of the country's healthcare costs should also be less than one percent. Also, the value of the FFC index is 0.84. Also, the insurance coefficient, income, age, education, marital status, having a family, being employed shows a significant relationship with health costs with a confidence level of 90%, and gender was not significant (p<0.1).
Conclusion: According to the measures taken, the amount of these costs is still high. The reason can be the increase in the cost of medical services and financing methods.

Keywords


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