Medicines take most of patient's money in India : JAMA report

A major proportion of expenditure for Indian patients goes into medicines, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on the high out-of-pocket spending on healthcare.

The study suggested that the government should regulate the drug and diagnostic market and bring down nonmedical costs like traveling to health facilities, food, and lodging.

"Components of Out-of-Pocket Expenditure and Their Relative Contribution to Economic Burden of Diseases in India" report is authored by Mayana Ambade, Rakesh Sarwal, and Nachiket Mor who are all PhDs-among others.

They studied expenditure patterns of 43781 inpatients and 8914 outpatients. They concluded that 29.1 percent of inpatient and 60.3 percent of outpatients' expenditure was on medicines. On the other hand, nonmedical costs for inpatients were 23.6 percent of their spending against 14.6 percent of outpatients.

The spending on doctor consultations and diagnostic tests went up depending on the patient's economic status. The study also noticed that annual outpatient costs were more than the annual income of households than annual inpatient costs. The study is based on the analysis of the National Sample Survey Organisation in 2018.

This study found that nonmedical costs were significant, the share of total health care OOPE (out of pocket expenditure) from doctor consultation and diagnostic test charges increased with socioeconomic status, and annual cost as a proportion of annual income was lower for inpatient than outpatient services.