Journal article

Promoting vaccinations - An analysis of measures taken by German statutory health insurers

Prophylactic vaccinations play a significant role in health care. As a relatively cost-effective preventive measure they can help to avert transmissible diseases and thus protect not only the vaccinated individuals themselves but also those who have not been vaccinated. In order to achieve this, a high vaccination rate is necessary; for many prophylactic vaccinations this rate is not reached in Germany. In order to counteract this trend the importance of prophylactic vaccinations was upgraded in 2007 within the scope of the reform of the health system. The reimbursement of patients\' vaccination fees was made compulsory for the statutory health insurance companies and statutory requirements were imposed on the insurers to ensure a nationwide provision of prophylactic vaccinations for insured persons. The objective of this paper is to evaluate to what extent the health insurance companies promote the increasing of vaccination coverage rate today and what measures are being used to present this topic to the public.

 

Languages

  • English

Publication year

2011

Journal

Health Economics Review

Volume

16

Type

Journal article

Categories

  • Service delivery

Tags

  • Coverage monitoring
  • Planning, budgeting and financing

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Added on: 2016-01-10 16:02:27

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