Hca 240
CHAPTER 7 HEALTH FINANCING MODULE
7.1 Overview 7.1.1 Chapter Outline This chapter presents the health financing module of the assessment tool. Section 7.1 defines health financing and its key components and describes the process of resource flows in a health system. Section 7.2 provides guidelines on preparing a profile of health financing for the country of interest, including instructions on how to customize the profile for country-specific aspects of the financing process. Section 7.3 presents the indicator-based part of the assessment. Section 7.4 provides guidance on how to synthesize your findings and presents suggestions for possible solutions to the most common problems in health system financing. 7.1.2 What Is Health Financing? The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health financing as the “function of a health system concerned with the mobilization, accumulation and allocation of money to cover the health needs of the people, individually and collectively, in the health system.” It states that the “purpose of health financing is to make funding available, as well as to set the right financial incentives to providers, to ensure that all individuals have access to effective public health and personal health care” (WHO 2000). The rest of this section draws from PHR (1999) and Mossialos and Dixon (2002). Health financing has three key functions Tip! (illustrated in Figure 7.1 and defined Definitions of health financing terms can be below): revenue collection, pooling of found in the following glossaries— resources, and purchasing of services. Revenue collection is concerned with the • World Bank Health Systems sources of revenue for health care, the Development—Glossary (World Bank type of payment (or contribution 2006) mechanism), and the agents that collect these revenues. All funds for health care, excluding donor contributions, are collected in one way or another from the general population or certain subgroups. Collection mechanisms include
7.1 Overview 7.1.1 Chapter Outline This chapter presents the health financing module of the assessment tool. Section 7.1 defines health financing and its key components and describes the process of resource flows in a health system. Section 7.2 provides guidelines on preparing a profile of health financing for the country of interest, including instructions on how to customize the profile for country-specific aspects of the financing process. Section 7.3 presents the indicator-based part of the assessment. Section 7.4 provides guidance on how to synthesize your findings and presents suggestions for possible solutions to the most common problems in health system financing. 7.1.2 What Is Health Financing? The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health financing as the “function of a health system concerned with the mobilization, accumulation and allocation of money to cover the health needs of the people, individually and collectively, in the health system.” It states that the “purpose of health financing is to make funding available, as well as to set the right financial incentives to providers, to ensure that all individuals have access to effective public health and personal health care” (WHO 2000). The rest of this section draws from PHR (1999) and Mossialos and Dixon (2002). Health financing has three key functions Tip! (illustrated in Figure 7.1 and defined Definitions of health financing terms can be below): revenue collection, pooling of found in the following glossaries— resources, and purchasing of services. Revenue collection is concerned with the • World Bank Health Systems sources of revenue for health care, the Development—Glossary (World Bank type of payment (or contribution 2006) mechanism), and the agents that collect these revenues. All funds for health care, excluding donor contributions, are collected in one way or another from the general population or certain subgroups. Collection mechanisms include