Universal health coverage in Iran: Where we stand and how we can move forward

Abstract

Over the last 4 decades, many initiatives have been implemented to accomplish equitable accessible health care for all Iranian citizens. The latest reform to address universal health coverage (UHC) is Health Transformation Plan (HTP), which resulted in significant improvements in health outcomes. Nevertheless, several challenges in the fields of sustainability of resources, service delivery, and health governance continued to exist. These challenges should be addressed in next steps to achieve the defined goals. To tackle these challenges, a number of practical solutions can be proposed, including making health financing more resilient, defining and implementing cost control policies and cost-effective package of services, changing the current method of providers’ payment, and ensuring good governance in the health system.