Health Care Financing
To strengthen health care financing in developing countries, USAID supports the use of national, regional, and disease-specific health accounts to improve the availability and transparency of health care financing information and make better health policy decisions. A national health account (NHA) provides a framework for measuring total public and private national health expenditures and for tracking the flow of health sector funds from their sources, through financial institutions, to providers and services. Planners and policymakers use NHAs to understand how, and how many, health resources are used in a health care system to review allocation patterns, assess the efficiency of current resource use, and evaluate options for health care reform. More than 50 low- and middle-income countries are using NHAs today.
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National Health Accounts
(NHA) training participants
Source: PHRplus |
USAID also promotes community-based health financing (CBHF) schemes to make health care more affordable and accessible. A CBHF scheme is any scheme managed and operated by an organization other than a government or private for-profit company that provides risk pooling to cover the costs (or part thereof) of health care services. CBHF redefines health systems from the community. The scheme is voluntary in nature, can be owned by a variety of organizations, and covers a variety of benefit packages . The activities of CBHF schemes include:
- Promoting access to and use of priority services, particularly maternal health, child health, and HIV/AIDS services
- Ensuring scheme sustainability
- Ensuring the scheme contributes to overall health sector financing objectives
- Monitoring and evaluation
Some of the challenges facing the health finance sector are:
- Developing a blueprint for health finance
- How to get from tools to goal
- How to move from pilots to systems
- How to work amidst the new global initiatives (PEPFAR, PMI, AI)
- How to reach the poor
Through the Health Systems 20/20 Program, USAID is strengthening health care financing throughout the world.
Other Financing Related Projects at USAID:
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