Project News

The workshop on Outpatient Fee Schedule was held at Centra by Centara Government Complex Hotel and Convention Centre on 9 January, 2019. The fee schedule committee members of National Health Security Office Region 13 Bangkok province participated as well. This was the first time for the members to gather together since its establishment to understand the experience from Japan.

In Bangkok, there are 3.8 million people are under Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) with approximately 7 million outpatient (OP) visit per year, under the close-end budget of 4 billion baht. The OP Services Fund is an essential part of National Health Security Fund which is managed locally by National Health Security Office Region 13 Bangkok (BKKNHSO). Up to now, the OP budget has been allocated to about 300 service providers by region-specified payment system.
BKKNHSO is currently facing several challenges 1) The outpatient expenditure has been exceeding the budget receiving from the government, 2) The medical service charges on the same item are different from a hospital to a hospital, and 3) Fee schedule has been already set on some items but without specific conditions. In order to tackle those challenges, BKKNHSO has established the fee schedule committee and the project held the workshop for OP budget control and the improvement of payment system.

Two special lecturers were invited to the workshop.
Firstly, Mr. Akio Koide, Chief Advisor of JICA Seamless Care Project, talked about the challenges of becoming aged society and Japanese experiences on social security policy. Then followed by Dr. Nobuo Sakata, Senior Researcher of Institute for Health Economics and Policy of Japan, to provide outline of universal health coverage in Japan, which covers fee schedule and implementation in public and private sectors, role of Central Social Insurance Medical Council (Chuikyou). After the lectures, the attendees were separated in small groups for discussion and presented their idea to strengthen the fee schedule in Bangkok, i.e. 1) Simplify design for the agreeable medical fee, 2) Price listing considering on labor cost, material cost, management cost, as well as future development cost. 3) The monitoring system to follow up patient's usages. The project will continue to work on this area of health care finance in Bangkok region in order to support NHSO's efforts for cost containment of UCS.