Heartfile Health Financing

Heartfile Health Financing is an mHealth-enabled health financing program, aimed at protecting the poor from catastrophic expenditures on healthcare. The program provides transparency and efficiency and is being steadily scaled-up in Pakistan.

Heartfile allows providers to seek transparent cash transfers for low-income individuals using a validation and prioritization system and health equity funds.

The platform allows providers to find funding for surgeries, treatment, and chronic care. The system allows donors to decide exactly who their donation is going to based on given criteria such as gender, location, disease, etc.

Economic shocks involving catastrophic healthcare spending are among the most common economic risks that households face in Pakistan. “Spending catastrophically” means spending critical savings, selling assets, relinquishing basic needs and/or borrowing in order to finance healthcare through out-of-pocket payments. Two thirds of the households recently surveyed in Pakistan reported that they had been affected by one or more health shocks and had spent catastrophically during the last 3 years.

Pakistan’s existing social protection mechanisms for health suffer from a number of deficiencies, including abuse and patronage in targeting, unpredictability of coverage and lack of transparency in the use of resources.

Publicly available: yes
Countries where available: Pakistan
Available online: yes