Survey of the demand trend for para-clinic services after family physician plan in Fars province

One of the most important way to increase equitable access and utilization of health services in health care system, is family physician program. This program acts as a bridge among different levels of health service delivery, and has a main role to decrease the health costs, and to provide accessibility to more special health care. Thus it is necessary that studies to be conducted to evaluate the performance this field in health care system. The current study was conducted to assess the trend and the percentage of changes in the prescriptions costs for para-clinic servicesæ before and after the family physician program in Fars province in 2012.
In this cross sectional study )descriptive- analytical (the number of referrals to receive para clinic services monthly , the type of insurance, the public and private centers , the type of service received and insurance costs before and after running family physician program in urban area was collected and the data were compared and analyzed.
Although the results showed 4% and 19% reduction in service demand in para-clinic centers at public and private sectors after the implementation of urban family physician plan, respectively, the cost of insurance was increased significantly.
The percentage of reduction in service demand after the implementation of urban family physician was more in public compared to private sector, in other cities of Fars province compared to Shiraz, and in medical radiation center compared to laboratory. Encouraging the private sector, particularly in the medical radiation field to make contract with health insurances organizations, and monitoring the proportion of service prescribed according to the severity of the disease has a significant impact on increasing accessibility and reducing the costs of service in this sector.