Revealing research of the National School of Public Health: Expanding the role of private insurance to cover hospitalization costs!

Significant changes in the behavior of patients observed during the economic crisis of the last seven years …
with the private security sector to gain ground in meeting the needs of patients.
According to research presented at the 12th Panhellenic Conference in the Field of Health Economics, National School of Public Health (E.P.D.Y.) with regard to the way the coverage of costs for hospital services as the primary services and the secondary, the percentage of those who used private insurance has increased significantly.
In particular, the question “ways to cover costs for hospital health services in the last year,” 5.5% said “with my private insurance” while in 2006 the respective rate was 2,6%. Also the question “ways to cover expenses for primary health services in the last month” rate of 1.8% answered “with my private insurance,” compared to 1.4% in 2006.
In accordance with the phd Health Economics of the Department of Economics of the University of Thessaly Dimitris Zavras -who presented the results of research on the “Choice of a supplier of medical care in the era of the memorandum”- the supplier of choice of medical care is mainly determined by socio-economic factors and the existence of insurance, public or private. The people of high socio-economic level tend to select primarily health care services in the private sector, something which also applies for persons who have private insurance. Of particular interest however, is the fact that a significant percentage of individuals make combined use of health services in the public and private sector. In relation to the disparities in the rates of use of health services both in PHC and in hospital care (public and private) mr Ζάβρας pointed out that in both the PHC and hospital care, low incomes are associated with less use of private health services and hospital. The findings show that the majority of users of primary health care use health services in the private sector, while the majority of users of hospital care used health services in the public sector.
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