More than half of all healthcare spending ‘out of pocket’

The share of people paying for healthcare expenses on their own, or out of pocket (OOP) made up 52.8 percent of the total health expenditure in 2019-20, up slightly went from 51.7pc in 2017-18, the National Health Account estimates released on Monday indicated. Moreover, people spent more than the government on healthcare, around Rs775.412 billion, as against Rs468.228bn spent by the federal, provincial, tehsil and district governments 2019-20. The data also shows that Punjab has the highest share (53pc) followed by Sindh (23pc) and KP (17pc, including FATA) while Balochistan has just (6pc) share of Pakistan’s OOP health expenditures. OOP spending is a payment by households directly to providers to obtain services and health products. It includes purely private transactions (individual payments to private doctors and pharmacies), official patient cost-sharing within defined public or private benefit packages, and informal payments.