A significant increase in healthcare financing through the introduction of mandatory social health insurance in Kazakhstan imroved access to many types of highly demanded medical services.
For example, consultations by specialist doctors, CT/MRI, X-ray and other types of diagnostics services are now provided to insured citizens at an extended volume as these are included into the Insurance Benefits Package and are provided for free to the insured people if referred by the primary health care physician.
These services are provided free of charge to the insured if the polyclinic (primary health care organization) cannot provide these services by itself directly, then it must ensure seamless care via outsourcing these services.
The number of rendered computed tomography services increased by more than 3 times in 2021, considering the mandatory social health insurance in Kazakhstan was fully launched in January 2020.
According to 12 months data for 2021, patients received 747 thousand computed tomography (CT) services, while in 2020 the same type of service voume was 232 thousand.
Similarly, MRI tests rose in volume from January to November last year, totaling 554 thousand services, while about 218 thousand services were provided a year earlier, in 2020.
Lastly, the number of consultations provided by specialist doctors increased significantly as well. In 2020, more than 29 million specialist doctor appointments were held, and in 2021 the number of such consultations exceeded 35 million services.
The number of diagnostic tests performed increased by 50%, from 9.9 million services in 2020 to more than 15 million services in 2021.
Source: Social Health Insurance Fund
