Health care economics in Serbia: Current problems and changes

Abstract

One of the fundamental rights of every human being is to enjoy "the highest attainable standard of health". Achieving better health requires no only adequate medical knowledge and technologies, laws and social measures in the field of health care, but also sufficient funding for fulfilling people's right to health. However, economic crisis has left every community with limited possibility of investing in health care and forced them to use the available resources more efficiently. This is the reason why health financing policy represents an important and integral part of the health system concerned with how financial resources are generated, allocated and used. Development of new drugs and medical technologies, population aging, increased incidence of chronic diseases as well as the peoples' rising demands from health care providers lead to a constant increase of health system costs worldwide. In these circumstances, countries in transition, like Serbia, face difficult challenges in financing their health systems. Current economic crisis and budget constraints do not allow the Government to simply allocate more public revenues for health and solve the people's expectations by increasing the spending. Instead, Serbia is forced to start reforms to provide a more efficient health system. The reform processes are positioned within the wider context of European integration and public administration reforms. This paper provides a short description of the health care system in Serbia focusing on the healthcare economics and reforms and their influence on financial sustainability.

The psychometric properties of the Comprehensive Headache-related Quality of life Questionnaire (CHQQ) translated to Serbian

“…The attitude towards patients in Serbia is generally sympathetic and respectful (Jocić and Krajnović 2014), so they are rarely embarrassed by their disease, and this may be even more true in case of episodic headaches, which do not cause permanent or readily perceptible hindrances. Besides, the majority of patients in Serbia are paid minimal wages, therefore they do not perceive transient absences from work as a major financial loss (Stosić and Karanović 2014). This was probably the reason why these two items did not correlate with severity and headache frequency well, and why their impact on quality of life was small.…”

Delivering Health Services Efficiently for Serbian’s

“…Serbia has adopted an approach to limit the number of specialists through advanced training arrangements among health facilities, trainees, and universities. To apply for professional training, the applicant is required to be employed full time in a medical institution and receive the approval of the IPH (Stosic and Karanovic 2014). 27 In addition, the HR plans usually do not integrate supply and demand forecasts, in part due to the lack of the availability of reliable and valid information for examining supply and use of health personnel across sectors.…”

Dynamics of Health Care Financing and Spending in Serbia in the XXI Century

“…Unemployed persons have to possess mandatory employment notice with employment record. In addition, a citizen has to register at the National Employment Service based on somebody's place of residence (47). Lastly, applying for health insurance at branch offices of the RHIF, according to the place of residence, is required.…”