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Social Health Insurance and Its Role in Catastrophic Health Expenditure: A Cross-Sectional Study in Illam District, Nepal

Received: 16 July 2022    Accepted: 1 August 2022    Published: 10 August 2022
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Abstract

Nepal remains committed to achieving universal health coverage, to ensure that government introduced social health insurance program in Illam district with objective that everyone should get health services they need and in doing so they should not go under the financial hardship. The study aims to assess the achievement of the program objective by determining the catastrophic health expenditure. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Illam district of Nepal, among 300 insured households whose date of service had come into effect. Face to face interview was done to collect the data using pretested semi-structured questionnaire with the sample selected through multi-stage random sampling technique. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify the factors associated with catastrophic health expenditure. The prevalence of catastrophic health expenditure was 13.2%. Additionally, univariate analysis showed household income and saving were mostly used for coping with out-of-pocket health payment while multivariate analysis revealed that No. of working Member in household, Presence of Under five children, Presence of chronic illness, Poverty line of household were significant factors associated with catastrophic health expenditure. Despite of the high utilization, social health insurance has not reduced the catastrophic health expenditure however, it has contained it. Thus, to further decrease the financial hardship, government needs to redesign the benefit package with wider scope and control the provider side moral hazard.

Published in International Journal of Health Economics and Policy (Volume 7, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14
Page(s) 65-70
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Social Health Insurance, Catastrophic Health Expenditure, Illam, Nepal

References
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Sanjeeb Shah, Nilambar Jha, Vijay Kumar Khanal, Gyanu Nepal Gurung, Mausam Shrestha, et al. (2022). Social Health Insurance and Its Role in Catastrophic Health Expenditure: A Cross-Sectional Study in Illam District, Nepal. International Journal of Health Economics and Policy, 7(3), 65-70. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14

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    ACS Style

    Sanjeeb Shah; Nilambar Jha; Vijay Kumar Khanal; Gyanu Nepal Gurung; Mausam Shrestha, et al. Social Health Insurance and Its Role in Catastrophic Health Expenditure: A Cross-Sectional Study in Illam District, Nepal. Int. J. Health Econ. Policy 2022, 7(3), 65-70. doi: 10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14

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    AMA Style

    Sanjeeb Shah, Nilambar Jha, Vijay Kumar Khanal, Gyanu Nepal Gurung, Mausam Shrestha, et al. Social Health Insurance and Its Role in Catastrophic Health Expenditure: A Cross-Sectional Study in Illam District, Nepal. Int J Health Econ Policy. 2022;7(3):65-70. doi: 10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14

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  • @article{10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14,
      author = {Sanjeeb Shah and Nilambar Jha and Vijay Kumar Khanal and Gyanu Nepal Gurung and Mausam Shrestha and Bibek Shah},
      title = {Social Health Insurance and Its Role in Catastrophic Health Expenditure: A Cross-Sectional Study in Illam District, Nepal},
      journal = {International Journal of Health Economics and Policy},
      volume = {7},
      number = {3},
      pages = {65-70},
      doi = {10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.hep.20220703.14},
      abstract = {Nepal remains committed to achieving universal health coverage, to ensure that government introduced social health insurance program in Illam district with objective that everyone should get health services they need and in doing so they should not go under the financial hardship. The study aims to assess the achievement of the program objective by determining the catastrophic health expenditure. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Illam district of Nepal, among 300 insured households whose date of service had come into effect. Face to face interview was done to collect the data using pretested semi-structured questionnaire with the sample selected through multi-stage random sampling technique. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify the factors associated with catastrophic health expenditure. The prevalence of catastrophic health expenditure was 13.2%. Additionally, univariate analysis showed household income and saving were mostly used for coping with out-of-pocket health payment while multivariate analysis revealed that No. of working Member in household, Presence of Under five children, Presence of chronic illness, Poverty line of household were significant factors associated with catastrophic health expenditure. Despite of the high utilization, social health insurance has not reduced the catastrophic health expenditure however, it has contained it. Thus, to further decrease the financial hardship, government needs to redesign the benefit package with wider scope and control the provider side moral hazard.},
     year = {2022}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Social Health Insurance and Its Role in Catastrophic Health Expenditure: A Cross-Sectional Study in Illam District, Nepal
    AU  - Sanjeeb Shah
    AU  - Nilambar Jha
    AU  - Vijay Kumar Khanal
    AU  - Gyanu Nepal Gurung
    AU  - Mausam Shrestha
    AU  - Bibek Shah
    Y1  - 2022/08/10
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    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14
    DO  - 10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14
    T2  - International Journal of Health Economics and Policy
    JF  - International Journal of Health Economics and Policy
    JO  - International Journal of Health Economics and Policy
    SP  - 65
    EP  - 70
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2578-9309
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hep.20220703.14
    AB  - Nepal remains committed to achieving universal health coverage, to ensure that government introduced social health insurance program in Illam district with objective that everyone should get health services they need and in doing so they should not go under the financial hardship. The study aims to assess the achievement of the program objective by determining the catastrophic health expenditure. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Illam district of Nepal, among 300 insured households whose date of service had come into effect. Face to face interview was done to collect the data using pretested semi-structured questionnaire with the sample selected through multi-stage random sampling technique. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify the factors associated with catastrophic health expenditure. The prevalence of catastrophic health expenditure was 13.2%. Additionally, univariate analysis showed household income and saving were mostly used for coping with out-of-pocket health payment while multivariate analysis revealed that No. of working Member in household, Presence of Under five children, Presence of chronic illness, Poverty line of household were significant factors associated with catastrophic health expenditure. Despite of the high utilization, social health insurance has not reduced the catastrophic health expenditure however, it has contained it. Thus, to further decrease the financial hardship, government needs to redesign the benefit package with wider scope and control the provider side moral hazard.
    VL  - 7
    IS  - 3
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • School of Public Health and Community Medicine, B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal

  • School of Public Health and Community Medicine, B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal

  • School of Public Health and Community Medicine, B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal

  • School of Public Health and Community Medicine, B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal

  • Karuna Foundation Nepal, Biratnagar, Nepal

  • ICU Department, Chitwan Medical College, Bharatpur, Nepal

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