Health Sector Evolution in Iran; A Short Review

Despite noticeable progresses and visible changes in health system of Iran, thereare many shortages and gaps which make this system far away from ideal. In orderto solve these problems and to visit goals set by the government a plan waslaunched to reform the health system in May 2014. These reforms encompassedseven sub-plans: decreasing in-patients out of pocket (OOP) payments, supportingphysicians to stay in deprived areas to improve healthcare services quality,planning presence of physicians in public hospitals to improve quality of theirservices, improving public hospital’s clinic visits quality, upgrading hoteling carequality in public hospitals, financial protecting of non-treatable diseases andspecial needs, as well as promoting natural childbirth. This manuscript reflectsopinions of an expert dealing with this reform. On the one hand, there have beennoticeable changes and achievements in this realm, such as 8.5 to 37 % reductionin in-patient OOP payment, coverage of 10.2 million people under national healthinsurance, and many other significant short-term achievements. On the other hand,instability of financial resources, irregularity of plans, weakness of the privatehealth sector, and costs of reforms implementation are main disadvantage ofreforms. Reforms designers are now working on payment systems of the providersto solve problems that arose as consequences of reforms and formulate structuresto ensure about stability of financial resources even in future governments.

Keywords:

Health Reform , Policy Making , Reforms Agenda , Iran