Health policy and planning
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There are different reimbursement rates by the various insurance schemes in Thailand, which include the Universal Coverage scheme (UCS), civil servant medical benefit scheme (CSMBS) and social security scheme (SSS). Hence, there are concerns about inequitable care standards. Harmonization of the rates of emergency medical services has been started since April 2012. ⋯ Payment mechanism alone is inadequate to ensure equitable distribution of health outcomes in provision of emergency medical care by private providers in urban settings across the country. A secondary finding was that patients accessing hospital services directly showed better improvement or lower in-hospital mortality compared with access through formal pre-hospital means (P < 0.001). Plausible explanations have been discussed with policy implications and recommendations for further studies.
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The Iranian health system, under the banner of family physician (FP) programme, has undergone substantial reforms to change utilization of health services, improve quality of care and enhance affordability. The national implementation of FP initiated in 2005 in parallel with rural health insurance (RHI) in rural areas and cities of <20 000 populations in Iran. The implementation of FP was the first national attempt to split the purchaser and provider of the primary health-care services in Iran. Using an adapted institutional approach, this article aims to explore the process of purchaser-provider split (PPS) during the implementation of FP and RHI reforms, and its consequences for the health system in Iran. ⋯ The implementation of FP and RHI in Iran demonstrated the mixed effects of PPS on health system performance. Our research revealed that PPS did not succeed in changing the status quo, became a reason for fighting, misunderstanding, lack of co-operation and failure of the fragile partnership between the purchaser and provider. We advocate careful contextual preparation prior to large-scale application of PPS during nationwide implementation of FP in Iran as well as other settings.