Universal Health Coverage in Croatia : Reforms to Revitalize Primary Health Care

This chapter describes and seeks to take stock of a cluster of supply-side reforms that aimed to revitalize what was described by the Croatian Public Health Institute as a passive and low-impact primary care system. The cluster of reforms, which in...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Vončina, Luka, Arur, Aneesa, Dorčić, Fedor, Pezelj-Duliba, Dubravka
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/773931516167775654/Universal-health-coverage-in-Croatia-reforms-to-revitalize-primary-health-care
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29181
Description
Summary:This chapter describes and seeks to take stock of a cluster of supply-side reforms that aimed to revitalize what was described by the Croatian Public Health Institute as a passive and low-impact primary care system. The cluster of reforms, which include a mix of organizational, primary care provider payment and pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement reforms, and enabling information technology investments, were implemented starting in 2008. The chapter is organized as follows. Section two provides an overview of Croatia’s health system; section three provides an overview of Croatia’s Social Health Insurance System; section four discusses the financial sustainability challenges facing the Social Health Insurance System; section five presents the evolution and challenges of primary care in Croatia before 2008; section six discusses the primary care reforms implemented from 2008 onward and reviews the available evidence on its impact, including on how poorer regions and individuals may have benefited; and section seven concludes and outlines the way forward.