continual care, medication and home visits offered to those
who cannot travel, such as stroke and elderly.
As the provider network under the Ministry of Public Health
(MOPH) jurisdiction did not gain a corporate status, the
MOPH, having the corporate status by law, signed an annual
contract with the NHSO, but capitation payment and disbursement
of admission services based on Diagnostic Related Group
(DRG) were directly paid to the providers, not via MOPH. This
ensures mutual financial accountability between provider networks
and NHSO.
Access to the IP services does not require registration.
Clinically indicated cases were admitted by a district hospital
or referred to provincial hospital when beyond its clinical
capacities. Upon discharge, summaries of clinical data were
electronically submitted to NHSO where a specific DRG group
was assigned with an attached relative weight. The total annual
IP global budget when divided by the total relative weights of
the whole country admissions resulted in reimbursement rate
per weight. This is the amount disbursed to respective hospitals.
The relative weight was regularly calibrated every 4–5 years.
Upon series of stakeholder consultations, new relative weight
was agreed and adopted. The annual global IP budget was
estimated based on expected admission utilization rate and unit
cost per admission at different level of hospitals.