Feasibility study for introduction of a micro health insurance scheme in villages

PSI/Myanmar and the international NGO PACT planned to develop an innovative micro-health insurance scheme for selected indigent villages in the Dry Zone of Myanmar. The scheme was intended to capitalize on existing relationships with villagers already accessing financial and community-building services from PACT, and link customers from that network to PSI/Myanmar’s Sun Quality Heath Network practitioners guaranteeing customers quality care at an affordable annual premium.

To support this, Options conducted a feasibility study to determine if the planned Community-based Health Insurance scheme (CBHIs) was the most appropriate approach for PSI and PACT Myanmar and to assess international best practices of micro-health insurance schemes and how they relate to Myanmar, identifying critical elements of setting up and sustaining such a scheme.  This included an analysis of micro-health insurance projects in Myanmar and elsewhere, as well as an investigation of other relevant and local alternative approaches to identify international best practices on micro-health insurance schemes and lessons learnt.

The study provided:

• An overview of current relevant health insurance and other relevant demand-side financing schemes in Myanmar in the context of available national and international experience;
• A rapid field analysis to obtain a snap shot of health seeking behaviour, expenditure, service access and utilisation among the target beneficiaries; and
• A stakeholder analysis looking at both the need for and acceptance of a micro-health insurance scheme linking the Sun Quality Health network with PACT’s micro-finance project (or alternative approach).