National Health Accounts
Also called: NHA estimates, NHA accounts · Topic: Economic Data: Census, NSS, Surveys and Statistical Tools · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
National Health Accounts are India's official estimates of how much the country spends on health in a year. They also show who pays and what the money buys. They add up spending by the government, by households and by others, such as insurers and employers. They are prepared under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The most watched figure is out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE). This is money patients pay from their own pocket at the time of treatment. A high OOPE share means people have weak financial protection: falling sick can push a family into debt. Note that the accounts may still miss some spending, such as on dental and rehabilitation care.
Example
National Health Accounts estimates show that OOPE fell to 39.4% of total health expenditure in 2021-22. It then rose back to 43.4% in 2022-23. They also show that out-patient care, meaning doctor visits, tests and medicines without a hospital stay, was about 38% of current health expenditure in 2021-22. Most insurance schemes in India do not pay for this kind of care.
Don't confuse with
- National Health Authority: It has the same short form, "NHA", but it is the agency that runs AB PM-JAY. It does not prepare the health spending accounts.
- NSS health (morbidity) surveys: These ask a sample of households what they spent on each illness. An example is the 60th round (January-June 2004). National Health Accounts are different: they combine many data sources into one national total of health spending.