PRIME MINISTER'S NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAMME (PMNHP): A COST COMPARISON ANALYSIS

Abstract

Background: Prime Minister's National Health Programme (PMNHP) is a publically funded cashless scheme at point of service, which was initiated in December 2015 to provide access to universal healthcare to people living below poverty line for indoor secondary and tertiary healthcare services for priority diseases in Pakistan. Objective: Our study aimed to compare prices of PMNHP districts packages, compare PMNHP with average payments made to healthcare providers by various health insurance companies, and compare prices among PMNHP itself, public sector not supported by the programme, and private healthcare not supported by the programme in Islamabad Methods: We conducted this comparative descriptive cross sectional study. For first two objectives, we collected secondary data, and for the third objective, we did convenient sampling of the treated patient (n-158) from PMNHP, public and private hospitals for selected diseases. Results: PMNHP district comparisons showed no significant difference among districts except Normal Delivery (NVD) at Rahim Yar Khan had lowest cost (mean=10111.11). For Diabetes Mellitus, Muzaffarabad had lowest (mean=1733.33), and Quetta had highest (mean=5300). Average price paid to healthcare providers by various insurance companies are on higher side as compared to PMMHP. Price differences were significant among PMNHP, Public Out of Pocket Spending (OOPS) and Private For NVD, [F(2, 27)=3364, p=0.000] with PMNHP (mean=15.000, SD=0.000) Public (OOPS) (mean=2.127, SD=0.221) and Private (mean=14.702, SD=0.658) For caesarian section [F(2,27)=2850, p=0.000], and Cholecystectomy, [F(2, 28)=221, p=0.000]. While in comparison with Private, PMNHP were cost beneficial for caesarian section (mean=32.016, SD=1.31) and Cholecystectomy (m=43.133, SD=6.648). Conclusion: PMNHP district wise packages are almost same among and for all the districts. Program is fairly and competitively priced against public and private healthcare providers, and private health insurance healthcare provider payments. PMNHP design features may be used to extend program in other districts.