Minimizing Healthcare Cost in Selected Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria
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Date
2021-03-17
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Innovations
Abstract
Research Problem: Healthcare and health insurance are words often used interchangeably but the former is much wider than the later when used in a University system. The proposed review of the health insurance cost by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the year 2018 call for this study to investigates healthcare cost in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Methodology: We proposed a linear programming model as an optimization solution to minimize healthcare cost in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. This study used mathematical assumptions and data sourced through questionnaires and interviews to determine the decision parameters on the linear programing model to minimize healthcare cost. The main aim of the study was to investigate if linear programming is a satisfactory representation in healthcare cost minimization model. The Cronbach's alpha value was used to test the consistency, validity and reliability of the data and the assumptions adopted in the study. To achieve the objective, research questions and linear programming models were formulated and the appropriate variables were proxies as healthcare cost are distilled from related literatures.
Findings: To answer the research questions, the calculated value from the linear programming solver was used to compare the study expected healthcare cost incurred by the selected tertiary institutions at time. It was revealed that the acceptance of the alternative hypothesis and the linear programming is a satisfactory representation for minimizing healthcare cost.
Conclusion: The study therefore conclude that cost reduction should be redistributed to the participating
insured, so as to make health insurance business a risk minimizing institution and not a profit maximization centre, as practiced by various Health Management Organisations in Nigeria.
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Keywords
Healthcare cost, Linear programming, Minimization, Tertiary institutions