Co-payment for medical service looms amid cost crisis
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A CO-PAYMENT system looks set to be introduced under a healthcare reform, which would require people to shoulder some of their medical expenses.
This became clear yesterday at a seminar on health-system reform, held through the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) committee on public health and the National Reform Council (NRC) committee health system reform.
“If the government cannot provide an adequate health budget, co-payment is definitely needed,” Dr Jate Sirataranon said in his capacity as the chair of the NLA committee.
He believed that a co-payment system would ensure that people get access to proper and quality medical services.
Assoc Prof Dr Pornpan Boonyarat-tanapan, who heads the NRC committee, revealed that her committee was studying various forms of co-payment. “We are looking into whether it should be direct or indirect co-payment,” she said.
The co-payment system is just one of the issues coming up as the Prayut government looks at ways to improve the healthcare sector.
There are three main healthcare schemes in the country: one for civil servants and their family; another is for people joining the social security scheme, and the third is the universal healthcare scheme.
The last scheme is the biggest, covering about 48 million Thais and offering free services for most types of treatments.
The universal healthcare scheme, however, has caused a massive workload and budget constraint on state hospitals to the point that the Public Health Ministry has clashed seriously with the National Health Security Office (NHSO) over how the scheme is run.
The NHSO has run the scheme mainly through services of state hospitals, paying them via per-head subsidy of just Bt2,895.90 per year.
Jate said it might be necessary to separate the budget for medical workers’ salary from the per-head subsidy to ease budget constraints.
Meanwhile, an informed source said the Cabinet would be asked to approve a rise in the per-head subsidy.
“In 2016 year, the per-head subsidy will rise to Bt3,160.94 if the Cabinet gives the green light,” the source said.
