Health services for catastrophic patients through the national health insurance program: literature review

Abstract

Introduction: Achieving universal health coverage, also known as UHC, has emerged as an essential global health policy, especially in addressing the burden of spending on major (catastrophic) diseases. However, catastrophic health expenditures are not always synonymous with high healthcare costs. However, a major disaster for low-income households is financing that is not entirely covered by insurance.

Objective: This study aims to provide data on the effects of national health insurance on disaster victims in various nations.

Materials and Methods: This research is a literature study; electronic searches were carried out in five databases, Proquest, Google Scholar, JACC, Science Direct, and Pubmed, for relevant research published between 1986 and 2022. Only 102 articles were relevant. After screening by reading abstracts and viewing all articles, concerning the impact of catastrophic disease health insurance, only 12 articles were declared eligible from 2017 to 22.

Results: The review results show that most health insurance positively affects disasters, as seen from the decrease in the incidence of CHE and the risk of OOP spending in a country. Income is a CHE factor in LMICs notwithstanding unfortunate preventive ways of behaving.

Conclusion: This study concludes that health insurance impacts those who need treatment, especially those who suffer from costly diseases or catastrophic diseases. Even though insurance is a poverty alleviation factor, without a good economic status, health services will still be an obstacle for a person to access health services. Furthermore, factors other than insurance cause poverty, namely small expenses such as accommodation and transportation that are not covered.