Financing Delivery of Health Care Services in Mexico - Article Example

?Financing Delivery of Health Care Services in Mexico Grade (13th, Oct, Financing Delivery of Health Care Services in Mexico Healthcare in Mexico is provided through three major avenues; namely the public institutions, the private health institutions and individualized care offered by private physicians. Therefore, there are varied sources of financing for healthcare in this country, which a Chief Financing Officer of a healthcare facility can rely on. This discussion seeks to address different methods of public and private healthcare financing in Mexico, with the aim of assessing their structures and how they can be improved to enhance efficiency of healthcare financing in the country. The current public and private sources of funds for health care financing There are three major sources of healthcare financing for healthcare delivery services in Mexico. While some methods of financing covers the bulk of the financing burden, there are others which caters for only a small percentage of the country’s population, owing to the inaccessibility and unaffordable nature of such methods. The three methods of financing healthcare in Mexico include: General government Government plays a vital role in the financing of healthcare services in Mexico. The contribution of the general government to healthcare financing in this country ranges from 44 to 48% of the annual healthcare budget. In the years 2005, governments contribution to healthcare financing in Mexico was rated at 45.5% of the total healthcare spending, while the same was rated at 48% in the year 2009 (OECD, 2011). The government offers financing through the Ministry of Health, which is responsible for ensuring that the public health institutions are financed and supplied accordingly, to ensure continuous provision of health services, especially to the rural poor and the people in the informal sector. Private Social Security Insurance The country has established a system of formal social security institutions that offer health insurance for the formally employed, which is financed through a tripartite contribution by the employer, the employee and the government (Cassels, 2005). This way, the social security insurance ensures that the formally employed as well as their families are offered health services, catered for by the tripartite contribution. For the year 2009, private social security insurance catered for 48% of the healthcare financing in Mexico (OECD, 2011). Out-of-pocket The country has a category of people who are not wholesomely covered by either the government or the private insurance financing services, and thus has to depend on their pockets to pay for the healthcare services (Garman, Johnson & Royer, 2011). These are especially the category of people who have enlisted the services of private physicians. The current methods of acquiring money for health care services, research, and training There are various methods that are applied in the acquisition of money for healthcare services, research and training in Mexico. Some of these methods include household contributions through community. Angel financing is one of the methods of obtaining money especially for healthcare services provision, where the angel financiers offer their financing of healthcare in the form of medical loans (Frenk, 2006). Such loans are offered to individuals who are salaried, yet are not able to obtain other forms of financing for their healthcare needs, considering that it is a financing method that does not require any collateral provision to qualify for the loans, while also helping the beneficiaries to avoid their credit cards being burdened with loan charges and loan interests (Johnson& Stoskopf, 2010). Government-to-Non-governmental Organization collaboration is yet another method that is applied in Mexico to acquire money for healthcare services, research and training. The Mexican government partners with the existing Non-governmental organizations that operate in the country, to provide the necessary funding for healthcare. This partnership is especially vital in the area of research and training (Frenk, 2006). Another method of acquiring money for healthcare, research and training is through shared responsibility between the national, state and local levels of government, where each level makes contribution towards facilitating research, training and delivery of health services to the people (Garman, Johnson & Royer, 2011). These methods are further boosted by the community initiative programs, which are also involved in facilitating and financing certain aspects of healthcare provision as well as training. This goes a long way in boosting the financing and delivery of healthcare in Mexico. Is health care financing in that Mexico is mainly market maximized or is mainly market minimized The healthcare system in Mexico is unique in a way that makes it complex to classify it either as mainly market maximized, or mainly market minimized. This is because, while the healthcare system is not universal, it has worked towards ensuring that the highest percentage of the Mexican population are covered by the various healthcare services providers, mostly categorized as public institutions, private entities or private physician programs (Cassels, 2005). The complexity of classifying this healthcare system can be seen through the exemplification of the year 2009 expenditure on healthcare financing in Mexico, by type of financing, where both the general government financing and the out-of-pocket financing tied at 48% (OECD, 2011). Nevertheless, the healthcare system in Mexico can be categorized as mainly market minimized, since the public sector is extensively involved in the funding and provision of healthcare services, in a higher level than the private sector. The data for health care expenditure and financing for Mexico in the year 2009 indicated that the government financing of healthcare services stood at 48%, while the private sector financing was only accounted for by 4%, with the exemption of out-of-pocket financing (OECD, 2011). This is a clear indication that the healthcare system in Mexico is mainly market minimized, as opposed to being market maximized. The various structures of health care capital project financing The healthcare system in Mexico can be categorized into three-subcategories. The first category is the social security sector, which is also fragmented into a number of institutions that make the sector operationally efficient. The different fragments of the social security offer a range of healthcare benefits to the Mexican population, which include healthcare, childcare, pensions as well as life insurance and disability insurance (Frenk, 2006). However, this category of the Mexican health system covers the individuals and families that are in the formal labor market, mostly catered for by the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), leaving the other category of the population open for coverage by the other structures of the healthcare system in the country (Lozano, et al., 2001). The social security structure has been made mandatory for all the population working in the formal sector, while also creating other affiliations that cater for the people working in the non-formal sector, but who are also in need of the social security coverage. The second category in the structure of the healthcare services in Mexico, is the Ministry of Health, which is the main entity that is tasked with the responsibility of covering and providing healthcare services to the population working in the non-formal sector, as well as the rural poor who are neither able to access social security services or to enroll in the private sector healthcare programs. Finally, the private sector completes the categorization of the structures of the Mexican healthcare system, mainly tasked with the responsibility of covering those in need of private physician services, as well as those able to afford the services offered by the for-profit entities, through out-of-pocket financing (Lozano, et al., 2001). How the identified methods of financing health care affect the role of a Chief Financing Officer The chief Financing Officer of a healthcare organization in Mexico is likely to be affected by the different methods of financing in various ways. First, considering that the methods of financing means that the finances issued to the healthcare organization do not come from a single source, the task of accounting for all the resources, as well as the mode of spending of the healthcare receivers, is a complex task. Secondly, the method of reporting the spending and expenditure of the healthcare services receivers to the financiers are different, thus making the reporting responsibility of the CFO a daunting task (Garman, Johnson & Royer, 2011). In addition, the charges for similar healthcare services offered to individuals covered under different healthcare structures are not the same, since some of the structures have subsidized the services for their beneficiaries, while those covered by the private sector and the private physicians have to pay a lot more. This makes accounting for such services non-uniform (Cassels, 2005). Finally, the Mexican healthcare system affects the role of the Chief Financing Officer, through making it difficult to predict with certainty the future financial position of the healthcare organization, since the methods of financing and the amounts payable are not uniform. How the methods of acquiring and allocating funds can be improved when resources are scarce Under circumstances where the financial resources are scarce, the methods of acquiring and allocating funds can be improved through encouraging community health support initiatives, which has by far impacted on the healthcare system in Mexico through mobilizing resources necessary for financing healthcare (Frenk, 2006). Through the encouragement of such community initiatives, it will be possible to mobilize further resources, while at the same time making the allocation of scarce resources more efficient, since the resources that could have covered the community healthcare initiatives can be deployed in other areas of the healthcare system. However, the most viable method of acquiring more financial resources, in situations where there is scarcity, is to encourage the enrollment of more individuals into the social security structures. This will go a long way in amassing further resources, which can be deployed in areas of scarcity within the healthcare system. This is because, the social security system, as opposed to the private sector and the out-of-pocket systems, ensures that all the individuals enrolled within the system continuously contributes into the social security kitty, even when they are not utilizing such resources (Johnson& Stoskopf, 2010). This way, the social security kitty will continue to mobilize more resources, thus making it possible to cater for the areas of scarcity, as opposed to private sector and out-of-pocket systems, which only avails such resources when the individuals are in need of the healthcare services. References Cassels, A. (2005). Health sector reform: key issues in less developed countries. Journal of International Development (7),329-47. Frenk, J. (2006). “Bridging the divide: global lessons from evidence-based health policy in Mexico”. Lancet, (368), 954-61. Garman, A. N., Johnson, T. J., & Royer, T. C. (2011). The future of healthcare: Global trends worth watching. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press. Johnson, J. A., & Stoskopf, C. H. (2010). Comparative health systems: Global perspective. Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett. Lozano, R. et al. (2001). “Mexico: Marginality, Need, and Resource Allocation at the County Level,” in Challenging Inequities in Health. New York: Oxford University Press. OECD. (2011). “Financing of health care”, in Health at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators. OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/health_glance-2011-64-en Read More