WORLD BANK PROJECT FOR THE ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT

In June 2018, Peter Pažitný and the former Minister of health Rudolf Zajac have prepared a study to help the Armenian government with the reform of its health insurance system. The study is one of the outputs of the project under the auspices of the World Bank.

In years 2002 – 2004 Slovakia went through a market-oriented health care reform with its own model on managed competition in health insurance. At the moment, Armenia is also implementing a very ambitious market-based health reform and thus the first – hand experience of both authors is very relevant to the Armenian government.

To address the challenges in health care purchasing, the Government of Armenia has begun to administer the basic benefit package through private insurance companies starting in October 2017. Under this arrangement, the State Health Agency would pool the risks, but the insurers would act as third-party administrators to purchase services. Model with for-profit-oriented health insurance companies is similar to Slovak model which is believed to help the Armenian government when designing a well-functioning health insurance system.