World Health Organization : Technical Report Series, No. 625: Financing of Health Services

By R. Alvarez Gutierrez

Book Id: WPLBN0000162840
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 4.9 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	World Health Organization : Technical Report Series, No. 625: Financing of Health Services
Author:	R. Alvarez Gutierrez
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Health., Public health, Wellness programs
Collections:	Medical Library Collection, World Health Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	World Health Organization


Citation APA MLA Chicago Gutierrez, R. A. (n.d.). World Health Organization : Technical Report Series, No. 625. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
Medical Reference Publication

Excerpt
Many countries are planning to reorient their health services to make them play a more purposeful role in unified plans for socioeconomic development. In the developing countries the thrust is to improve services for the poor-particularly those living in rural areas or periurban slums. But the rate of progress in making these improvements is at present severely limited by shortage of funds. By re-examining all sources of hance for health-related activities, it is hoped to h d ways of making faster progress. While public health administrators are well aware of the funds under their own control, information is rarely available about total expenditure on health-related activities-spending by organs of government other than the ministry of health itself, by social security agencies, and by charitable bodies, and particularly expenditure in the private sector, including that on traditional services. Only when all sources of finance are brought together, and an analysis is made of what precise services are financed by what funds in particular geographical areas, is it possible to consider what changes can be made in order to move faster towards the new objectives. What is therefore needed is to develop (a) a methodology for classifying this information and (b) low-cost methods of collecting it. Such information should help in examining how far it is possible to develop new sources of finance, to redeploy funds already devoted to health purposes, or to release resources by more efficient methods of operation for use in areas of higher priority.

Table of Contents
CONTENTS Page 1 . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.1 Relevance of financing to health policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.2 Authorization for WHO'S study of financing . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1.3 Preparatory work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 1.4 Objectives of the Study Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2 . Problems in financing health services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 ' . 1 The lack of funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2 The distribution of health resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.3 Rising health costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.4 Lack of coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.5 Inefficiencies in spending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3 . Approaches to improved financing of health activities . . . . . . . . . . 21 Extending existing sources of finance . . . . . . Developing new sources of revenue . . . . . . . The social security approach . . . . . . . . . . Local community efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . Foreign assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reduction in spending on services of lower priority Increasing efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other methods of financing . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 4.1 Definition of health-related activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 4.2 Sources of finance for health activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 4.3 Types of health activity financed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 5. Methods of financial data collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 5.1 Ministry of health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Other government departments or nationally financed agencies 5.3 Provincial or local governments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Compulsory insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Voluntary insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Private employers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Charity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 External cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.9 Private households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.10 Summary of methodological aspects . . . . . . . . . . . .