In 2019, Kazakhstan piloted compulsory social health insurance in the Karaganda region, and from January 2020, the new system, comprised of two health benefits packages, has been launched throughout the country. The country expressed interest in a holistic assessment of the effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and resilience of the health financing in the country and capacity building of the leading specialists in charge of healthcare policy design and implementation. The Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan (MOH) established a technical working group (TWG) to assess the performance of healthcare financing to identify main problems and solutions with external technical support.
In response to the MOH request, the WHO Barcelona Office for Health Systems Financing (WHO BO) and the World Country Office in Kazakhstan (WHO CO) offered technical support to assess the Kazakh health financing system based on the health financing progress matrix (HFPM) guideline.
The WHO Barcelona Office for Health Systems Financing and the WHO CO commissioned Consulting Group Curatio Sarl (CGC) to help the country assess the progress in health financing and strengthen the capacity of key national actors in healthcare financing policy.
The CGC team worked with the TWG to:
- collect information and describe health financing schemes filling the Stage 1 section of the HFPM questionnaire
- discuss and answer 33 assessment questions along 7 dimensions
The CGC team helped the country to complete the questionnaire, draft the assessment report, and discuss with external reviewers assigned by the WHO team in Geneva.
Next, the CGC drafted conclusions and recommendations following the WHO report template, consulted with the MOH leadership, and consolidated the Kazakhstan HFPM report.
Finally, the CGC drafted a policy brief to contribute to the high-level policy dialogue planned for 2024 on improving health financing in Kazakhstan.