Contributions and challenges of healthcare financing towards universal health coverage in Ethiopia: a narrative evidence synthesis

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Abstract

Background

High burden of healthcare expenditure precludes the poor from access to quality healthcare services. In Ethiopia, a significant proportion of the population has faced financial catastrophe associated with the costs of healthcare services. The Ethiopian Government aims to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030; however, the Ethiopian health system is struggling with low healthcare funding and high out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure despite the implementation of several reforms in health care financing (HCF). This review aims to map the contributions, successes and challenges of HCF initiatives in Ethiopia.

Methods

We searched literature in three databases: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of science. Search terms were identified in broader three themes: health care financing, UHC and Ethiopia. We synthesised the findings using the health care financing framework: revenue generation, risk pooling and strategic purchasing.

Results

A total of 52 articles were included in the final review. Generating an additional income for health facilities, promoting cost-sharing, risk-sharing/ social solidarity for the non-predicted illness, providing special assistance mechanisms for those who cannot afford to pay, and purchasing healthcare services were the successes of Ethiopia’s health financing. Ethiopia's HCF initiatives have significant contributions to healthcare infrastructures, medical supplies, diagnostic capacity, drugs, financial-risk protection, and healthcare services. However, poor access to equitable quality healthcare services was associated with low healthcare funding and high OOP payments.

Conclusion

Ethiopia's health financing initiatives have various successes and contributions to revenue generation, risk pooling, and purchasing healthcare services towards UHC. Standardisation of benefit packages, ensuring beneficiaries equal access to care and introducing an accreditation system to maintain quality of care help to manage service disparities. A unified health insurance system that providing the same benefit packages for all, is the most efficient way to attain equitable access to health care.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-022-08151-7.

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Most cited references 63

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Enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research: ENTREQ

Sandy Oliver, Allison Tong, Kate Flemming … (2013)

Background The syntheses of multiple qualitative studies can pull together data across different contexts, generate new theoretical or conceptual models, identify research gaps, and provide evidence for the development, implementation and evaluation of health interventions. This study aims to develop a framework for reporting the synthesis of qualitative health research. Methods We conducted a comprehensive search for guidance and reviews relevant to the synthesis of qualitative research, methodology papers, and published syntheses of qualitative health research in MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL and relevant organisational websites to May 2011. Initial items were generated inductively from guides to synthesizing qualitative health research. The preliminary checklist was piloted against forty published syntheses of qualitative research, purposively selected to capture a range of year of publication, methods and methodologies, and health topics. We removed items that were duplicated, impractical to assess, and rephrased items for clarity. Results The Enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research (ENTREQ) statement consists of 21 items grouped into five main domains: introduction, methods and methodology, literature search and selection, appraisal, and synthesis of findings. Conclusions The ENTREQ statement can help researchers to report the stages most commonly associated with the synthesis of qualitative health research: searching and selecting qualitative research, quality appraisal, and methods for synthesising qualitative findings. The synthesis of qualitative research is an expanding and evolving methodological area and we would value feedback from all stakeholders for the continued development and extension of the ENTREQ statement.

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The political economy of austerity and healthcare: cross-national analysis of expenditure changes in 27 European nations 1995-2011.

Martin McKee, Aaron Reeves, Sanjay Basu … (2014)

Why have patterns of healthcare spending varied during the Great Recession? Using cross-national, harmonised data for 27 EU countries from 1995 to 2011, we evaluated political, economic, and health system determinants of recent changes to healthcare expenditure. Data from EuroStat, the IMF, and World Bank (2013 editions) were evaluated using multivariate random- and fixed-effects models, correcting for pre-existing time-trends. Reductions in government health expenditure were not significantly associated with magnitude of economic recessions (annual change in GDP, p=0.31, or cumulative decline, p=0.40 or debt crises (measured by public debt as a percentage of GDP, p=0.38 or per capita, p=0.83)). Nor did ideology of governing parties have an effect. In contrast, each $100 reduction in tax revenue was associated with a $2.72 drop in health spending (95% CI: $1.03-4.41). IMF borrowers were significantly more likely to reduce healthcare budgets than non-IMF borrowers (OR=3.88, 95% CI: 1.95 -7.74), even after correcting for potential confounding by indication. Exposure to lending from international financial institutions, tax revenue falls, and decisions to implement cuts correlate more closely than underlying economic conditions or orientation of political parties with healthcare expenditure change in EU member states. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved.

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Dropping out of Ethiopia's community-based health insurance scheme.

Robert Sparrow, Getnet Alemu, Arjun S Bedi … (2015)

Low contract renewal rates have been identified as one of the challenges facing the development of community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes. This article uses longitudinal household survey data gathered in 2012 and 2013 to examine dropout in the case of Ethiopia's pilot CBHI scheme. We treat dropout as a function of scheme affordability, health status, scheme understanding and quality of care. The scheme saw enrolment increase from 41% 1 year after inception to 48% a year later. An impressive 82% of those who enrolled in the first year renewed their subscriptions, while 25% who had not enrolled joined the scheme. The analysis shows that socioeconomic status, a greater understanding of health insurance and experience with and knowledge of the CBHI scheme are associated with lower dropout rates. While there are concerns about the quality of care and the treatment meted out to the insured by providers, the overall picture is that returns from the scheme are overwhelmingly positive. For the bulk of households, premiums do not seem to be onerous, basic understanding of health insurance is high and almost all those who are currently enrolled signalled their desire to renew contracts.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Ayal Debie: debieayal@gmail.com

Resham B. Khatri: r.khatri@uq.edu.au

Yibeltal Assefa: y.alemu@uq.edu.au

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Health Serv Res

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Health Serv Res

Title: BMC Health Services Research

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1472-6963

Publication date (Electronic): 5 July 2022

Publication date PMC-release: 5 July 2022

Publication date Collection: 2022

Volume: 22

Electronic Location Identifier: 866

Affiliations

[1 ]GRID grid.59547.3a, ISNI 0000 0000 8539 4635, Department of Health Systems and Policy, Institute of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, , University of Gondar, University of Gondar, ; P.O. Box: 196, Gondar, Ethiopia

[2 ]GRID grid.1003.2, ISNI 0000 0000 9320 7537, School of Public Health, , the University of Queensland, ; Brisbane, Australia

Article

Publisher ID: 8151

DOI: 10.1186/s12913-022-08151-7

PMC ID: 9254595

PubMed ID: 35790986

SO-VID: 72821ac8-8ce6-42fd-b427-f2eb0802ad6c

License:

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 25 November 2021

Date accepted : 2 June 2022

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: contribution,ethiopia,healthcare financing,successes,universal health coverage

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: contribution, ethiopia, healthcare financing, successes, universal health coverage

Contributions and challenges of healthcare financing towards universal health coverage in Ethiopia: a narrative evidence synthesis

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Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Supplementary Information

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Most cited references 63

Enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research: ENTREQ

The political economy of austerity and healthcare: cross-national analysis of expenditure changes in 27 European nations 1995-2011.

Dropping out of Ethiopia's community-based health insurance scheme.

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