The Provider Payment Mechanisms Technical Initiative: A 10 Year Journey

The Who, What, and How of Paying for Health Services for Universal Health Coverage

Members of the Joint Learning Network for Universal Coverage (JLN) have a common purpose to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) – securing access to good quality services for their populations without financial hardship. A challenge faced by many countries on this journey to UHC, is to optimize “value for money” from health resources in order to cover more of the population, with better quality services, and to provide better financial protection, within available resources. When the JLN was launched in 2010, provider payment mechanisms were identified by the founding countries as one of four priority technical areas to advance UHC, leading to the creation of the Provider Payment Mechanisms (PPM) Technical Initiative.
Since the PPM Technical Initiative began in 2011, countries have made tremendous progress identifying practical and creative solutions to challenges related to provider payment systems and leveraging these systems to help advance UHC goals. Initially, JLN member countries focused on developing toolkits and guidance documents, that were lacking, on the fundamentals of provider payment. Over ten years, countries tested new payment systems, systematically learnt from these payment systems and created new knowledge that has been shared by twenty countries to date. The experience of the PPM Technical Initiative has morphed as countries matured, from basic questions of “How do we design provider payment systems?” to “How can we leverage provider payment for financial sustainability, better resource allocation and providing the right incentives to providers?”. Featuring a combination of global experts and in-country implementers, this video shares the journey of the PPM Technical Initiative and showcases the journey of the countries over the past 10 years as we learnt together, laughed together and made new connections and friendships across the world. Join us to hear more about the journey, our passion for UHC, and our hope for the future.