{"id":1994,"date":"2024-11-17T23:54:01","date_gmt":"2024-11-17T23:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=1994"},"modified":"2024-11-17T23:54:01","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T23:54:01","slug":"health-care-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=1994","title":{"rendered":"Health care in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISPOR Europe <\/a>kicks off this week in Barcelona, Spain. In honor of ISPOR, I will summarize some key attributes of the Spanish health care system based on a 2024 report from the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the Instituto Aragones de Ciencias de la Salud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Country overview<\/strong><\/p>\n

Population<\/strong>: 48.4 million (as of 2023),Life expectancy<\/strong>: 83.2 years (as of 2022), highest in the EUFertility rate<\/strong>: 1.2 (as of 2022), below replacement levelsGDP\/Capita (current USD)<\/strong>: 29,675 GDP\/Capita (purchasing power parity, USD)<\/strong>: 46,332Obesity rate<\/strong>: 16%Tobacco use<\/strong>: 19.8% of individuals >15 were daily smokersAlcohol use<\/strong>: 6% of adults regularly engage in heavy drinking (below EU average of 18.5%)<\/p>\n

https:\/\/iris.who.int\/bitstream\/handle\/10665\/378543\/9789289059695-eng.pdf#page=25.21<\/div>\n

Healthcare spending<\/strong><\/p>\n

Healthcare spending<\/strong>: \u20ac132 billion (as of 2021)Healthcare spending as a share of GDP<\/strong>: 10.8% (as of 2021) Pharmaceutical spending<\/strong>: \u20ac12.7 billionPublic healthcare spending as a share of overall healthcare spending<\/strong>: 71.7% (as of 2021).Out of pocket costs<\/strong>: 20.6% of total health spending, largely required for pharmaceuticals and some prosthesesRisk of patient catastrophic expenditures<\/strong>: Very low; among the lowest in the EU due to several protection mechanisms (e.g., exemptions from co-payments), accessible primary care settings, services provided for free at the point of use.Access to specialist<\/strong>. Family Doctor\u2019s act as gatekeepers to specialized and hospital careFocus of health reform since 2018<\/strong>: Widen the population covered by the health system, reduce co-payments, improve scope of covered services, reinforce primary care<\/p>\n

https:\/\/iris.who.int\/bitstream\/handle\/10665\/378543\/9789289059695-eng.pdf#page=63.21<\/p>\n

Health insurance options<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overview<\/strong>: The Spanish national health system (SNS) provides universal coverage for residents largely funded by taxes. Health competences, however, are transferred to the 17 Autonomous Communities (Comunidades Aut\u00f3nomas<\/em>). The Ministry of Health is responsible for the overall coordination of the health system under the governance of the Inter-territorial Council for the SNS (Consejo Interterritorial del Sistema Nacional de Salud, CISNS<\/em>). Insurance eligibility<\/strong>: Based on residency in Spain. (This marks a change from 2012-2017 when eligibility was linked to the legal and employment status of individuals)Can patients opt out of the public health care system (SNS)<\/strong>: No, however individuals can purchase voluntary health insurance (VHI) if they desireWhat share of patients purchase supplemental health insurance<\/strong>: 20.8% purchase VHI (as of 2021)<\/p>\n

https:\/\/iris.who.int\/bitstream\/handle\/10665\/378543\/9789289059695-eng.pdf<\/p>\n

Provider supply<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Hospital beds<\/strong>. 296\/100,000 inhabitants, of which 81.4% of beds are at public hospitals Nurse vs. doctors<\/strong>: The ratio of nurses to doctors has lingered below the OECD countries\u2019 average ratio (1.4 against 1.97).Key concerns<\/strong>: Shortages in primary care physicians in rural areas, projected future shortages in some specialties (e.g., family medicine, anaesthesiology, geriatrics, psychiatry and radiology)<\/p>\n

https:\/\/iris.who.int\/bitstream\/handle\/10665\/378543\/9789289059695-eng.pdf<\/p>\n

Recent policy changes and challenges:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is euthanasia legal?<\/strong>: Yes, as regulated by Organic Law 3\/2021Key challenges<\/strong>: Addressing access gaps, (e.g., limited coverage of dental and optical care), and large waiting lists for some services<\/p>\n

To learn more, you can read the full report<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISPOR Europe kicks off this week in Barcelona, Spain. In honor of ISPOR, I will summarize some key attributes of the Spanish health care system based on a 2024 report from the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the Instituto Aragones de Ciencias de la Salud. Country overview Population: 48.4 million (as of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}