Current efforts and proposals to reduce healthcare costs in Serbia

Jakovljević, Mihajlo; Jovanovic, Mirjana; Lazić, Zorica; Jakovljevic, Vladimir; Djukic, Aleksandar; Velickovic, Radmila; Antunović, Marko

doi:10.5937/sjecr1104161j

Cited by 56 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Contemporary momentum in the Western Balkans healthcare financing instabilities inspired us to conduct a nationwide cross-sectional survey in the largest regional market of Serbia (4). The trial's in-depth assessment of clinicians' economic judgment related to decision-making between diagnostic and/ or treatment alternatives proved that the current policy remained quite unsuccessful in terms of increasing their cost consciousness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The National Health Insurance Fund (RFZO) is a core financing institution for the provision of all public and most private medical services in the country. The Fund adopted and the package of cost-containment measures, including financial sanctions for over-prescribing physicians, and introduced narrow, strictlydefined criteria for the reimbursement of medicines (4). Local Guidelines of Pharmacoeconomics targeted at prescribers and aimed to increase awareness on cost-effectiveness were developed by the Pharmaceutical Chamber of Serbia and circulated nationwide (5).…”

Section: Policy Interventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the advent of the world macroeconomic crisis in 2008, all of the Western Balkan economies experienced substantial difficulties in providing sustainable healthcare financing (3). Serbia's National Health Insurance Institute core fund, which is in charge of most of the healthcare funding and deals with the largest regional population, soon introduced costcontainment policies and financial punitive measures against over-prescribing physicians (4). In 2011, local Guidelines on Pharmacoeconomic Evaluations in Serbia were published, disseminated and implemented into clinical practice (5).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Do Health Reforms Impact Cost Consciousness of Health Care Professionals? Results from a Nation-Wide Survey in the Balkans

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Policy Interventionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Do Health Reforms Impact Cost Consciousness of Health Care Professionals? Results from a Nation-Wide Survey in the Balkans

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Such a fund leans towards generating significant financial losses [6] by contracting with medical care providers based on estimated costs rather than number of consumers. The Serbian health system has thus experienced severe difficulties in achieving a sustainable funding model [7].…”

Section: Serbiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource allocation strategies in Southeastern European health policy

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The past 23 years of post-socialist restructuring of health system funding and management patterns has brought many changes to small Balkan markets, putting them under increasing pressure to keep pace with advancing globalization. Socioeconomic inequalities in healthcare access are still growing across the region. This uneven development is marked by the substantial difficulties encountered by local governments in delivering medical services to broad sectors of the population. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of the following evidence: published reports on health system reforms in the region commissioned by WHO, IMF, World Bank, OECD, European Commission; all available published evidence on health economics, funding, reimbursement in world/local languages since 1989 indexed at Medline, Excerpta Medica and Google Scholar; in depth analysis of official website data on medical care financing related legislation among key public institutions such as national Ministries of health, Health Insurance Funds, Professional Associations were applicable, in local languages; correspondence with key opinion leaders in the field in their respective communities. Contributors were asked to answer a particular set of questions related to the issue, thus enlightening fresh legislative developments and hidden patterns of policy maker's behavior. Cost awareness is slowly expanding in regional management, academic and industrial establishment. The study provides an exact and comprehensive description of its current extent and legislative framework. Western Balkans policy makers would profit substantially from health-economics-based decision-making to cope with increasing difficulties in funding and delivering medical care in emerging markets with a rapidly growing demand for health services.

show abstract

“…It bears particular financial burden for Central & Eastern European transitional economies due to poor insurance coverage in most countries of the region and huge contribution of outof-pocket payments by ordinary citizens [4]. This is the case with most middle to high-income post-2004 EU members, CIS and Western Balkans countries [5][6][7][8]. Dental medicine has extraordinary high demand for services, compared to clinical Farmeconomia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cost differentials of dental outpatient care across clinical dentistry branches

Rancic¹,

Rančić

Majstorović

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Dental care presents affordability issues in Central & Eastern European transitional economies due to lack of insurance coverage in most countries of the region and almost complete out-of-pocket payments by citizens.Objective: Real world estimates on cost differentials across clinical dentistry branches, ICD-10 diagnostic groups and groups of dental services.Methods: Prospective case-series cost analysis was conducted from the patient perspective. A six months time horizon was adopted. Sample size was 752 complete episodes of treatment in 250 patients, selected in 2012/2013 throughout several specialist state- and private-owned dental clinics in Serbia. All direct costs of dental care were taken into account and expressed in Euros (€).Results: Mean total costs of dental care were € 46 ± 156 per single dentist visit while total costs incurred by this population sample were € 34,424. Highest unit utilization of services belongs to conservative dentistry (31.9%), oral surgery (19.5%) and radiology (17.4%), while the resource with the highest monetary value belongs to implantology € 828 ± 392, orthodontics € 706 ± 667 and prosthetics € 555 ± 244. The most frequently treated diagnosis was tooth decay (33.8% unit services provided), pulpitis (11.2%) and impacted teeth (8.5%), while most expensive to treat were anomalies of tooth position (€ 648 ± 667), abnormalities of size and form of teeth (€ 508 ± 705) and loss of teeth due to accident, extraction or local periodontal disease (€ 336 ± 339).Conclusion: Although the range of dental costs currently falls behind EU average, Serbia’s emerging economy is likely to expand in the long run while market demand for dental services will grow. Due to threatened financial sustainability of current health insurance patterns in Western Balkans, getting acquainted with true size and structure of dental care costs could essentially support informed decision making in future.

show abstract

Current efforts and proposals to reduce healthcare costs in Serbia

Cited by 56 publications

References 5 publications

Do Health Reforms Impact Cost Consciousness of Health Care Professionals? Results from a Nation-Wide Survey in the Balkans

Do Health Reforms Impact Cost Consciousness of Health Care Professionals? Results from a Nation-Wide Survey in the Balkans

Resource allocation strategies in Southeastern European health policy

Cost differentials of dental outpatient care across clinical dentistry branches

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About