Advantages Of National Health Insurance In South Africa

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Public insurance in South Africa National health insurance (NHI) National health insurance program is a government proposed financing scheme which is being implemented in South Africa which is concerned to make sure all citizens are provided with essential healthcare regardless of their employment status and eliminate the discrepancies within the healthcare in South Africa. Major crisis in South Africa in healthcare system is unequal access to health facilities amongst different socio-economic groups, and this is because of discrepancy of money spent in the private sector than the public sector. National Health Insurance has improved the accessibility to quality health services and reduced the financial problems or expenditure for the population. …show more content…

Because the NHI expects to give free social insurance to all South Africans, the new framework is relied upon to bring an end to the financial burden facing public sector patients. NHI plan to provide all the citizens with access to definite package of comprehensive health services. Although, NHI service cannot provide every medical treatment it offers services at all levels, particularly for primary healthcare. This package excludes any cosmetic surgeries (botox, liposuction, face lifts, etc.), dental procedures, expensive eye care devices, medications not included in National Essential Drug list and extensive diagnostic procedures. The benefits provided will cover preventive, curative and rehabilitative health services. It is important to note that emphasis will be placed on prevention of disease and promotion of health. The present healthcare system places undue focus on curing of disease and performance of procedures when people have developed complications. Overall, South Africa recognized that this National Health Insurance is a key to long term development of their economy as protecting its citizens from expenses they had to pay for illness or injury it keeps them physically, …show more content…

These benefit packages describes different kinds of services offered under a specific category and are organized under different levels of public care services. These benefit packages are also useful in identifying the barriers in achieving the equity and accessibility and thus intervene these barriers by programming definitive strategies for the promotion of the comprehensive distribution of the health service programs. These definitive strategies include financial resourcing, measures for improved accessibility, timely referrals or feedbacks from the patients at different health facilities. With the standards which are set up based on these benefit packages, National Department of Health could be able to measure the targets of the program and compare the performance of different levels of care within facilities like provincial, district, national

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