Catastrophic and impoverishing out-of-pocket payments for health care in Poland in 2013–2021

Protecting households from financial hardship when accessing health care is a universal policy objective across European countries. Previous analyses have shown that households in Poland relatively often experience financial strain due to out-of-pocket payments for health. This study aims to provide new evidence on financial protection in Poland, using indicators of catastrophic and impoverishing health spending. We used data from annual household budget surveys between 2013 and 2021. Catastrophic spending is defined as payments for health greater than 40% of the household's capacity to pay, while impoverishing spending occurs when out-of-pocket payments are higher than the capacity to pay. We employed logistic regression to identify factors associated with catastrophic payments. The incidence of catastrophic spending was 9% in 2021 and remained relatively constant over the years analyzed, nearing 10% only in 2020. Further, 3.3% of households in 2021 were impoverished or further impoverished, down from 4.1% in 2013. Payments for medicines contribute the most to catastrophic spending, but the role of other services has been increasing. We found a significant association between catastrophic payments and gender, age, education, disability, residence place, number of children, main source of income, and consumption level. It is necessary to address existing coverage gaps and to evaluate implemented policies in order to develop more effective measures to reduce the burden of out-of-pocket payments in Poland.