TEHRAN - Iran Health Insurance Organization, together with the Ministry of Health, provided important and significant services in different sectors during the past year (March 2022-March 2023).

Providing free insurance for low-income families, paying the medical expenses of infertile couples, providing services to the disabled, supporting patients with rare diseases, and providing services to foreign nationals have been done in the past year, IRNA reported.

The government has adopted policies to identify uninsured people. In this regard, the Health Insurance Organization in cooperation and interaction with the Social Security Organization was assigned to identify uninsured people, who are often from the vulnerable groups of society.

Accordingly, some 90 percent of hospitalization costs and around 70 percent of outpatient treatment costs are covered by insurance.

In this regard, by allocating 50 trillion rials (about $100 million), 107 rare diseases are covered by the health insurance fund, and with the cooperation of universities, a lion’s share of treatment costs are paid by the government.

So far, more than 31 rare and special diseases, including high blood pressure, MS, type 2 diabetes, hemodialysis, thalassemia, kidney transplant, hemophilia, diabetic retinopathy, type 1 diabetes, cystic fibrosis, and autism, have been identified in the system of the Health Insurance Organization.

Unfortunately, during the past years, many infertile couples who wanted a child avoided pursuing their problems due to the huge and staggering costs of treatment.

This is while paying attention to this important issue can help increase the young population, which is one of the most important and influential elements in the progress and development of the country.

With the support of the organization, infertile couples without insurance coverage, pregnant mothers, and their babies up to the age of 5 are covered by insurance.

All the indicators of health and treatment have made significant progress after the Islamic Revolution, and now Iran is one of the leading countries in this field.

Electronic health records have been set up so far for 98 percent of people in the country. One of the key features of an EHR is that health information can be created and managed by authorized providers in a digital format capable of being shared with other providers across more than one healthcare organization.

Iran has one of the strongest health systems in the region and this opportunity should be used optimally in the field of health diplomacy, Health Minister Bahram Einoullahi has said.

In June 2021, Ahmed al-Mandhari, the World Health Organization director for Eastern Mediterranean Region, said the Islamic Republic of Iran is a role model for primary health care.

For the past four decades, its PHC network has aimed to ensure that people have timely access to affordable, accessible, and acceptable essential health services, he explained.

In October 2021, World Health Organization (WHO) representative to Iran Jaffar Hussain, said that Iran's health system can be a model for other countries in the region, especially in the field of health and the use of valuable forces such as healthcare providers.

The national budget bill for the current Iranian calendar year 1402, which started on March 21, has increased the health sector’s budget by 29 percent compared to the past year’s budget.

The bill has proposed a budget of 2,730 trillion rials (about $5.5 billion) for the Ministry of Health, IRNA reported.

The administration has also proposed 690 trillion rials (about $1.4 billion) as subsidies to provide medicine by health industries.

MG