Investigating the Factors Affecting Catastrophic Costs With Emphasis on the Role of Insurance

Nowadays, providing household health expenses is an important challenge in the health system and increasing the costs of health services have created problems in financing health expenses on families facing illness. In this regard, insurance seems to play a key role in such costs for households. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the devastating costs of health with emphasis on the role of insurance.

The present study is a descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study that was conducted in medical hospitals of Tehran. 170 patients (households) were selected as the research sample and finally 165 patients (households) were included in the study. Data were collected using a questionnaire of the World Health Organization and finally analyzed using SPSS software.

In 2019, about 31% of our statistical population were exposed to staggering health costs. The results of the Logit econometric model show that households with more members under the age of 11 and over 65, whose head is unemployed, or who have a low level of education, or who are chronically ill, are more likely to incur staggering health costs. Meanwhile, the percentage of catastrophic health costs in households without insurance protection is very high.

Insurance protection along with economic indicators is one of the factors affecting the staggering costs of household health in Tehran.