Healthcare workers´ experiences and perceptions of the provision of health insurance benefits to the elderly in rural Tanzania: an explorative qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare workers play an important part in the delivery of health insurance benefits, and their role in ensuring service quality and availability, access, and good management practice for insured clients is crucial. Tanzania started a government-based health insurance scheme in the 1990s. However, no studies have specifically looked at the experience of healthcare professionals in the delivery of health insurance services in the country. This study aimed to explore healthcare workers' experiences and perceptions of the provision of health insurance benefits for the elderly in rural Tanzania. METHODS: An exploratory qualitative study was conducted in the rural districts of Igunga and Nzega, western-central Tanzania. Eight interviews were carried out with healthcare workers who had at least three years of working experience and were involved in the provision of healthcare services to the elderly or had a certain responsibility with the administration of health insurance. The interviews were guided by a set of questions related to their experiences and perceptions of health insurance and its usefulness, benefit packages, payment mechanisms, utilisation, and availability of services. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the data. RESULTS: Three categories were developed that describe healthcare workers´ experiences and perceptions of delivering the benefits of health insurance for the elderly living in rural Tanzania. Healthcare workers perceived health insurance as an important mechanism to increase healthcare access for elderly people. However, alongside the provision of insurance benefits, several challenges coexisted, such as a shortage of human resources and medical supplies as well as operational issues related to delays in funding reimbursement. CONCLUSION: While health insurance was considered an important mechanism to facilitate access to care among rural elderly, several challenges that impede its purpose were mentioned by the participants. Based on these, an increase in the healthcare workforce and availability of medical supplies at the health-centre level together with expansion of services coverage of the Community Health Fund and improvement of reimbursement procedures are recommended to achieve a well-functioning health insurance scheme.

Health insurance and health system (un) responsiveness: a qualitative study with elderly in rural Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: Health insurance (HI) has increasingly been accepted as a mechanism to facilitate access to healthcare in low and middle-income countries. However, health insurance members, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, have reported a low responsiveness in health systems. This study aimed to explore the experiences and perceptions of healthcare services from the perspective of insured and uninsured elderly in rural Tanzania. METHOD: An explanatory qualitative study was conducted in the rural districts of Igunga and Nzega, located in western-central Tanzania. Eight focus group discussions were carried out with 78 insured and uninsured elderly men and women who were purposely selected because they were 60 years of age or older and had utilised healthcare services in the past 12 months prior to the study. The interview questions were inspired by the domains of health systems' responsiveness. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the data. RESULTS: Elderly participants appreciated that HI had facilitated the access to healthcare and protected them from certain costs. But they also complained that HI had failed to provide equitable access due to limited service benefits and restricted use of services within schemes. Although elderly perspectives varied widely across the domains of responsiveness, insured individuals generally expressed dissatisfaction with their healthcare. CONCLUSIONS: The national health insurance policy should be revisited in order to improve its implementation and expand the scope of service coverage. Strategic decisions are required to improve the healthcare infrastructure, increase the number of healthcare workers, ensure the availability of medicines and testing facilities at healthcare centers, and reduce long administrative procedures related to HI. A continuous training plan for healthcare workers focused on patients´ communication skills and care rights is highly recommended.

Responsiveness of health care services towards the elderly in Tanzania: does health insurance make a difference? A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Responsiveness has become an important health system performance indicator in evaluating the ability of health care systems to meet patients' expectations. However, its measurement in sub-Saharan Africa remains scarce. This study aimed to assess the responsiveness of the health care services among the insured and non-insured elderly in Tanzania and to explore the association of health insurance (HI) with responsiveness in this population. METHODS: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017 where a pre-tested household survey, administered to the elderly (60 + years) living in Igunga and Nzega districts, was applied. Participants with and without health insurance who attended outpatient and inpatient health care services in the past three and 12 months were selected. Responsiveness was measured based on the short version of the World Health Organization (WHO) multi-country responsiveness survey study, which included the dimensions of quality of basic amenities, choice, confidentiality, autonomy, communication and prompt attention. Quantile regression was used to assess the specific association of the responsiveness index with health insurance adjusted for sociodemographic factors. RESULTS: A total of 1453 and 744 elderly, of whom 50.1 and 63% had health insurance, used outpatient and inpatient health services, respectively. All domains were rated relatively highly but the uninsured elderly reported better responsiveness in all domains of outpatient and inpatient care. Waiting time was the dimension that performed worst. Possession of health insurance was negatively associated with responsiveness in outpatient (- 1; 95% CI: - 1.45, - 0.45) and inpatient (- 2; 95% CI: - 2.69, - 1.30) care. CONCLUSION: The uninsured elderly reported better responsiveness than the insured elderly in both outpatient and inpatient care. Special attention should be paid to those dimensions, like waiting time, which ranked poorly. Further research is necessary to reveal the reasons for the lower responsiveness noted among insured elderly. A continuous monitoring of health care system responsiveness is recommended.