Financial assistance for the treatment of schizophrenia in select institutions in the Philippines

@#<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Objective:</strong> This paper aims to characterize existing financial assistance available to patients with schizophrenia. Specifically, we described (1) the funding mechanisms for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia; (2) the process for accessing financial assistance; and (3) the experiences of consumers of services of these support mechanisms.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Methods:</strong> We employed qualitative techniques using key informant interviews (KII) and focus group discussion (FGD). Key informants were officials from institutions providing or offering financial assistance for patients with any health-related concerns, including schizophrenia. Focus group participants were support group members or caregivers of patients with schizophrenia. Purposive sampling was used to select participants for both providers and consumers of financial assistance or scheme. Topic guides for KII and FGD were used for data collection. Thematic analysis was performed on the qualitative data gathered from the informants and focus group participants.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Results:</strong> Securing financial assistance for schizophrenia followed a generally similar process, whether the source is from government offices or civil society organizations, and can be grouped into three main stages: (a) pre-application, (b) application, and (c) post-application. While the process of seeking financial assistance appears to be straightforward, issues were encountered in all of the stages by both providers and recipients alike, namely: (a) Financial assistance as an augmentation to patient resources; (b) Mismatch between demand and service capability; (c) Measures of organizational effectiveness; (d) Health professionals and support groups as "bridges" / "facilitators" to financial assistance providers; (e) Financial and non-financial costs incurred by caregivers in applying for financial assistance; and (f) Recipient-provider relationship as a barrier to the feedback process.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Conclusion:</strong> This study provides a glimpse of available financial and other relevant assistance to clients, including clients suffering from schizophrenia. More extensive research covering more organizations, support groups, and caregivers from different parts of the country is recommended.</p>

An update on finances and financial support for medical students in Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine

<p><b>INTRODUCTION</b>Increasing financial challenges have resulted in great debt among medical graduates worldwide. In Singapore, more scholarships and bursaries have been disbursed in recent years to support students who are financially challenged. We aimed to study the financial status of medical students in National University of Singapore (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (i.e. NUS Medicine), Singapore, and the financial support available to them.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A cross-sectional quantitative study was performed. Surveys were distributed and completed by medical students of NUS Medicine. Information regarding household income, financial assistance, monthly allowance and expense, and concurrent occupations was collected. We compared our findings with the results of a similar study performed in 2007 and national income data.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>A total of 956 (66.2%) out of 1,445 medical students completed the survey. 19.5% and 58.5% of respondents came from households with monthly incomes < SGD 3,000 and > SGD 7,000, respectively. 20.6% of students had loans, 18.9% had scholarships and bursaries, and 14.4% worked to support themselves.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Medical school fees have risen by more than 50% over the past ten years. Our study found that there were increases in the proportion of students from both the lower- and higher-income segments, with proportionally fewer students from the middle-income segment. A large number of students were working and/or had some form of financial support. More should be done to meet the needs of financially challenged medical students to ensure equal access to quality medical education.</p>

Increasing insurance protection efforts and improving the fairness of health care services: A-nalysis on the convergence mechanism between New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme and Healthcare Financial Assistance Program / 中国卫生政策研究

The goal of China's health care insurance system is to improve the fairness and accessibility of health care services for low-income people. In the past 10 years of practice, the insurance has made remarkable a-chievements and gained popularity among broad masses of people. With the support of World Bank and UK Depart-ment for International Development, China Rural Health Development Project ( hereinafter referred as Health XI Project) have used the advantages of unique funding, management and human resources to launched a series of pro-ject activities, with the main goal of achieving effective convergence between the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NRCMS) and Healthcare Financial Assistance Program (HCFAP) in order to explore the assistance system of catastrophic diseases. Some areas have achieved seamless convergence between NRCMS and HCFAP to explore the assis-tance program for catastrophic diseases in the context of confirming and optimizing the management of services covered by the project, especially conducting a series of exploration and practice activities in the aspects of increasing new funding channels to establish theCatastrophic Disease Assistance Fund, strengthening the related supporting regulations, etc. The results show that the utilization of services covered by HCFAP in the project has significantly improved, the protection level of health insurance has greatly improved, and the people satisfaction has significantly increased.

Research on the Budget Performance Management of Financial Provision Expenditure：a case study of Tongji Hospital / 中国卫生经济

Currently, the competent authorities and the financial sector propose that public hospitals should firstly select pilot for key projects, and steadily to expand the implementation scope of financial assistance expenditure budget performance management. By using the example of Tongji Hospital, the current status and problems of budget performance management for public hospital financial assistance expenditure is analyzed, the expenditure budget performance management after received financial assistance is discussed.

Analyzing Two-Stage Models of Influencing Factors on the Elderly Health Status / 中国卫生经济

Objective: To check the influencing factors on elderly health status, especially the influences of financial support on elderly health. Methods: By controlling the endogenous, it empirically analyzed the relationship between financial support and the elderly health. Results: It is found that the overall health status self-evaluation of the elderly are well. Financial support, gender, registered permanent assistance, elderly economical condition ( wherher have savinh) and elderly Activity Center have insignificant effects on the elder health, especially financial support. Conclusion:To improve the national health level and relieve the pressure of the ageing population, the government can increase the income of middle-young people, increase pension and improve activity facilities.