Catastrophic Health Expenditure before and after Compensations from the new Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme in Rural Zigong of Sichuan Province
Zhou, Y.-J.; Tang, Y.-X.; Zhang, Q.; Qiu, P.-Y.; Zhang, Q.
Sichuan da Xue Xue Bao. Yi Xue Ban 47(5): 768-771
2016
ISSN/ISBN: 1672-173X PMID: 28598096 Accession: 059476894
To estimate catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) of rural families in Zigong, and to determine the main influencing factors of CHE. CHE was estimated using indicators such as occurrence and average deviations. The influencing factors of CHE were identified through binary logistic regression. We found 6.37% catastrophic health payment headcount, 1.13% mean catastrophic payment gap, and 17.80% mean positive gap after compensations. Compensations from the new rural cooperative medical scheme (NCMS) led to a reduction of 74.81% catastrophic health payment headcount for hospitalization costs and 48.00% catastrophic health payment headcount for outpatient costs, respectively. The numbers of hospitalizations in a family, presence of patients with chronic diseases, per capita household income, and numbers of family members with a job were found to be predictors of CHE. Rural families that have patients with chronic diseases are vulnerable to CHE.The government should develop policies to ease the financial burdens of the families with a high accumulated health expenditure over time.