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Informal Payments for Health Care in Iran: Results of a Qualitative Study
BACKGROUND: Informal payments to health care providers have been reported in many African, Asian and European countries. This study aimed to investigate different aspects of these payments that are also known as under-the-table payments in Iran. METHODS: This is an in-depth interview-based qualitati...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Tehran University of Medical Sciences
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4450017/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26060779 |
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author | PARSA, Mojtaba ARAMESH, Kiarash NEDJAT, Saharnaz KANDI, Mohammad Jafar LARIJANI, Bagher |
author_facet | PARSA, Mojtaba ARAMESH, Kiarash NEDJAT, Saharnaz KANDI, Mohammad Jafar LARIJANI, Bagher |
author_sort | PARSA, Mojtaba |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Informal payments to health care providers have been reported in many African, Asian and European countries. This study aimed to investigate different aspects of these payments that are also known as under-the-table payments in Iran. METHODS: This is an in-depth interview-based qualitative study conducted on 12 purposively chosen clinical specialists. The interviewees answered 9 questions including the ones about, definitions of informal payments, the specialties and hospitals mostly involved with the problem, how they are paid, factors involved, motivation of patients for the payments, impact of the payments on the health care system and physician-patient relationship and the ways to face up with the problem. The findings of the study were analyzed using qualitative content analysis method. RESULTS: Six topics were extracted from the interviews including definitions, commonness, varieties, motivations, outcomes and preventive measures. It was revealed that under-the-table payments are the money taken (either in private or public portions) from patients in addition to what formally is determined. This problem is mostly seen in surgical services and the most important reason for it is unrealistic tariffs. CONCLUSION: Regarding the soaring commonness of informal payments rooted in underpayments of health expenditures in some specialties, which deeply affect the poor, the government has to boost the capitation and to invest on health sectors through supporting the health insurance companies and actualizing the health care costs in accord with the real price of the health care delivered. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4450017 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Tehran University of Medical Sciences |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-44500172015-06-09 Informal Payments for Health Care in Iran: Results of a Qualitative Study PARSA, Mojtaba ARAMESH, Kiarash NEDJAT, Saharnaz KANDI, Mohammad Jafar LARIJANI, Bagher Iran J Public Health Original Article BACKGROUND: Informal payments to health care providers have been reported in many African, Asian and European countries. This study aimed to investigate different aspects of these payments that are also known as under-the-table payments in Iran. METHODS: This is an in-depth interview-based qualitative study conducted on 12 purposively chosen clinical specialists. The interviewees answered 9 questions including the ones about, definitions of informal payments, the specialties and hospitals mostly involved with the problem, how they are paid, factors involved, motivation of patients for the payments, impact of the payments on the health care system and physician-patient relationship and the ways to face up with the problem. The findings of the study were analyzed using qualitative content analysis method. RESULTS: Six topics were extracted from the interviews including definitions, commonness, varieties, motivations, outcomes and preventive measures. It was revealed that under-the-table payments are the money taken (either in private or public portions) from patients in addition to what formally is determined. This problem is mostly seen in surgical services and the most important reason for it is unrealistic tariffs. CONCLUSION: Regarding the soaring commonness of informal payments rooted in underpayments of health expenditures in some specialties, which deeply affect the poor, the government has to boost the capitation and to invest on health sectors through supporting the health insurance companies and actualizing the health care costs in accord with the real price of the health care delivered. Tehran University of Medical Sciences 2015-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4450017/ /pubmed/26060779 Text en Copyright © Iranian Public Health Association & Tehran University of Medical Sciences This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License which allows users to read, copy, distribute and make derivative works for non-commercial purposes from the material, as long as the author of the original work is cited properly. |
spellingShingle | Original Article PARSA, Mojtaba ARAMESH, Kiarash NEDJAT, Saharnaz KANDI, Mohammad Jafar LARIJANI, Bagher Informal Payments for Health Care in Iran: Results of a Qualitative Study |
title | Informal Payments for Health Care in Iran: Results of a Qualitative Study |
title_full | Informal Payments for Health Care in Iran: Results of a Qualitative Study |
title_fullStr | Informal Payments for Health Care in Iran: Results of a Qualitative Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Informal Payments for Health Care in Iran: Results of a Qualitative Study |
title_short | Informal Payments for Health Care in Iran: Results of a Qualitative Study |
title_sort | informal payments for health care in iran: results of a qualitative study |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4450017/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26060779 |
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