Financing Public Health Functions for Integrated Primary Healthcare — Experience from Thailand

Abstract

An application of blended payment for disease prevention and health promotion services could be considered as a way to incentivize providers to deliver prioritized prevention and promotion services and avoid under-servicing which could happen if only capitation payment is applied. A community health fund is an innovative funding for community-based disease prevention and health promotion services, with contributions from both central and local governments. It is a pooling mechanism that enhances budget allocation for disease prevention and health promotion services in response to health needs and local priorities. The legislation on earmarked alcohol and tobacco taxes for disease prevention and health promotion creates additional sources of funding for disease prevention and health promotion as demonstrated in the case of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation. With the enactment of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation Act 2001, the Fund is financially secured and sustained.