Semashko model
The Semashko model is a single-payer healthcare system where healthcare is free for everyone. Unlike the Beveridge model, where national healthcare is funded by a special tax paid by the population, the health care in the Semashko model is financed from the national budget. The model is named after Nikolai Semashko, a Soviet People's Commissar for Healthcare.[1] The model is presently used in Russia and most other post-Soviet states.[2]
Features
In the Semashko model, medical services are provided by a hierarchy of state institutions under the supervision of Ministry of Healthcare and are financed from the national budget.[1] For the country's citizens, medical services are free and equal, with an emphasis on social hygiene and prevention of infectious diseases.[1] The model features publicly owned medical facilities, salaried health workers, large providers of primary health care and an exceptionally high degree of governmental administration, providing a universal health care.[2] The Semashko model does not allow private medical practices, as all physicians are state employees.[1] In the Soviet Union under this model all of the country's territory was divided into districts, with outpatient hospitals and local physicians assigned to each of them.[1] These physicians were multi-special, able to treat most common diseases, while more complicated cases were referred to regional hospitals.[1]
A special feature of the Semashko model is the "method of dynamic dispensary surveillance", which holds that every detected case of a serious disease should be subjected to a certain set of guidelines, including planning curative activities, documenting them, ensuring the required number of contacts with specialists, a monitoring process and outcome indicators.[2] Such guidelines were developed at a later stage, in the late 1960s.[2]
History
The model substantially improved the health of the population relative to the starting point of its implementation in the late 1920s.[2]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Georgy Manaev (15 April 2021). "What did the USSR actually get right?". Russia Beyond. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
- ^ a b c d e "The evolving Semashko model of primary health care: the case of the Russian Federation". Risk Manag Healthc Policy (11). 2018. doi:10.2147/RMHP.S168399. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
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