The East Asia and Pacific region is characterized by wide variations in sources of healthcare financing, pooling of funds, purchasing of care services, and the extent to which these policy instruments and programs provide social protection. Existing healthcare financing systems in the region are under increasing pressure from a continued prevalence of communicable diseases, an emergence of non communicable diseases, and a rapidly aging population. Large inequalities between the poor and the prosperous in their access to healthcare financing mechanisms can be reformed and strengthened to improve outcomes especially for the poor. Financing Health Care in East Asia and the Pacific emphasizes the need for high-quality, well-funded health systems that generate sustainable financing to ensure optimal health outcomes and guaranteed financial protection. Adequate funding, however, will not be enough. Systems will need to manage and spend funds wisely. It reviews best practices and remaining challenges related to every function of health financing both within countries and across East Asia and Pacific countries. The book will be of particular interest to government leaders, policy makers, health economists, donors, and health service researchers."

Strategic purchasing of health services involves a continuous search for the best ways to maximize health system performance by deciding which interventions should be purchased, from whom these should be purchased, and how to pay for them. In such an arrangement, the passive cashier is replaced by an intelligent purchaser that can focus scarce resources on existing and emerging priorities rather than continuing entrenched historical spending patterns. Having experimented with different ways of paying providers of health care services, countries increasingly want to know not only what to do when paying providers, but also how to do it, particularly how to design, manage, and implement the transition from current to reformed systems. 'Designing and Implementing Health Care Provider Payment Systems: How-To Manuals' addresses this need. The book has chapters on three of the most effective provider payment systems: primary care per capita (capitation) payment, case-based hospital payment, and hospital global budgets. It also includes a primer on a second policy lever used by purchasers, namely, contracting. This primer can be especially useful with one provider payment method: hospital global budgets. The volume s final chapter provides an outline for designing, launching, and running a health management information system, as well as the necessary infrastructure for strategic purchasing."