Experts′ perspectives on barriers due to induced demand in health services

Abstract

Introduction: Induced demand is a debatable subject in health care economy. It is defined as inducing provision, care and delivers an inessential service to clients of health care system using provider's power. It eventually increases health care costs and catastrophic cost index by confronting unlimited needs and limited resources. This article aims to investigate the barriers due to induced demand in health services with the use of expert's experiences of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: This is a qualitative research. Semi-structured interview was used for data gathering. Participants in this study were people who had been informed and experienced in this regard and were known as 'experts'. Total of 17 people were interviewed by purposive sampling and some criteria such as data reliability of information and stability were considered. The anonymity of the interviewees was preserved. The data were transcribed, categorized, and then the thematic analysis was used. Results: In this study, thematic analysis was conducted so that three themes and 41 sub-themes were extracted. The three main themes include insurance organizations barriers, health systems barriers, and patient's barriers. Each of them has some sub-themes. Discussion: The results of this study provide barriers due to induced demand. The most notable findings include double financial pressure on insurance, unreal expectations of the insurance to confirm non-essential drugs, inappropriate allocating the resources reducing the service quality, damaging equity in health system, reducing economic productivity, rising health care and diagnostics costs, patient's confusion and causing undue influence on patients. These findings will help health policy-makers consider challenges of design appropriate strategies to reduce them.