WHO’s HFPM recommends health insurance reforms for J&K

Rohit Goja
Srinagar July 30: The Health Financing Progress Matrix (HFPM) for Jammu and Kashmir on a request from the local government to the WHO Country Office for India has recommended J&K to be an early adopter of the reforms pertaining to implementation of PPMs for health insurance.

Stating the recommendations for improving purchasing arrangements include, “Harmonization of purchasing arrangements across schemes and across service functions Viz primary care versus secondary and tertiary care with a bid to increase efficiency in service delivery and improving complementarity of PPMs for quality of care.”
“National Health Authority (NHA) is commencing a pilot on diagnosis related groups that will demonstrate the feasibility and early effectiveness of implementing PPMs for health insurance,” it reads.
The report recommends that the government in J&K should be an early adopter of the reforms and should commence adaptation of the systems accordingly to this end.
“Introduce a policy analysis unit within SHA or local university to conduct analytical studies for health financing in J&K based on locally available data to inform provider payment reform for UHC in J&K with a system-wide, rather than scheme-basis perspective,” the report recommended.
It also said that the UT may establish an autonomous strategic purchasing office that can work to optimize payment mechanisms within ABPMJAY and beyond by putting in appropriate incentives for ensuring efficiency, equity and quality of care.
Pertinently, the Health Financing Progress Matrix (HFPM) for Jammu and Kashmir was undertaken based on a request from the Government of Jammu and Kashmir to the WHO Country Office for India to support the union territory (UT) in exploring ways of strengthening its health system.