Policy Brief Issue 149: Health Financing during COVID-19 responses in Thailand

– Thailand spent 440,023 million baht on healthcare in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2022, of which 257,892 million baht went toward COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccination services.

– In addition to having higher hospital reserves than in the pre-pandemic period, private hospitals’ overall revenue and asset growth rates also increased during the pandemic. These elements suggest that the funding for all hospitals and pertinent organizations was adequate to handle the COVID-19 situation.

– Household out-of-pocket payment on medicines and medical supplies increased, while health care utilization (both inpatient and outpatient) decreased, which resulted in decrease of catastrophic health expenditures among the low-income households in this study.

– Although the government attempted to establish a new mechanism for health budget decision making in response to the pandemic, rules and procedures for budget utilization did not differ much from the existing mechanism. This impacts on the budgetary response and resource mobilization during the outbreak.