iDSI caught up with Dr Yogan Pillay, Deputy Director-General for Communicable and Non-communicable Disease, Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation in the National Department of Health in South Africa, ahead of the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR) symposium in Liverpool next month. 1. You are a panel member in the sub-session, ‘Design of Health Benefit Packages’ during the HSR 2018 …
Five key points on Modicare: India’s soon to be rolled-out National Health Insurance Scheme
As India gets ready for the introduction of Modicare, reported to be the largest government-sponsored insurance scheme in the world with a target population of 500 million, we highlight five key points about the revolutionary health scheme. 1. The poor are the primary beneficiaries of this scheme Modicare’ s predecessor, the government-run health insurance programme Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), …
Towards HTA in the Philippines: iDSI welcomes passage of new Congress UHC Bill
September 6th 2017, the Philippines’ lower house of Congress approved the Universal Health Coverage Bill, introducing key reforms to improve population coverage, reform provider payment, and strengthen health technology assessment (HTA) implementation, among others. It has been 15 years since HTA was introduced in the Philippines through the efforts of dedicated key individuals. This development marks a crucial step towards …
Musings and Mopeds in Vietnam – Part 1
This is a guest post by Maggie Helliwell, retired English general practitioner and former Vice Chair of NICE One morning early in 2016, an email popped into my inbox from NICE International: Would I like to go to Vietnam in March to help the Ministry of Health develop their primary care strategy? At first I had to say no as …
5,000 infant warmers, cardiac stents, or cancer drugs: How will India choose?
India is embarking on an ambitious journey to provide UHC for its 1.2bn people, one sixth of the world’s population, through a national health assurance scheme. Today’s move of RSBY (India’s largest health insurance scheme, for its Below Poverty Line population) into the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare appears to be a significant step towards that goal.
Work in India at Central level
December 2014 The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) is the Government of India health insurance scheme for families below the poverty line (BPL), with over 37 million families currently enrolled. RSBY covers a range of inpatient services and surgical procedures, provided by a network of private and public hospitals and reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis with defined benefits packages (bundle …