Introduction: At
present co-insurance (out of pocket payment) of insured parties in Iran for
medicine prescriptions in outpatient ward equals to 30% of total cost of
prescriptions. This amount of payment of co-insurance in those families with
difficult to treat or chronic patients, causes to increase the encounter with
catastrophic health costs. The goal of this research was to examine the
willingness to pay of Social Security Organization insured for not encounter to
catastrophic cost of medicine prescriptions.
Method: This
cross sectional research was performed through interview based questionnaire in
Esfahan Social Security Organizations insured society. The interviewees were
randomly selected among head of households insured who referred to Esfahan's
Quods Clinic. Contingent valuation method was used to evaluation the mean of
willingness to pay of respondents. Validity and reliability of this method were
verified through several studies. One way Anova and categorical regression in SPSS software were used for examination of
variables relation and analysis of factors effected upon the amount of
willingness to pay.
Results: Respondents
were willing to pay 3496 Tomans (SD=2396) of medicine prescriptions costs for
exemption from payment of prescriptions with prices more than100,000 Tomans.The
results of categorical regression analys showed the maximum effect of income
level upon the amount of willingness to pay.
Conclusion:
Regarding to the mean evaluated of willingness to pay insurer organizations
can increase the coverage of medicine prescriptions cost more than 100,000
tomans price, through decreasing the coverage of medicinal prescriptions with
fewer prices than estimated WTP.