Health Insurance Board (HIB) is a social protection program of the Government of Nepal that aims to enable its citizens to access quality health care services without placing a financial burden on them. The households, communities and government are directly involved in this program. Health Insurance program helps prevent people from falling into poverty due to health care costs i.e. catastrophic expenditure due to accidents or disease by combining prepayment and risk pooling with mutual support. This program also advocates towards quality health services. This program attempts to address barriers in health service utilization and ensure equity and access of poor and disadvantaged groups as a means to achieve Universal Health Coverage.
Out-of-pocket expenditure has always been the largest source of funding in Nepal,followed by government expenditure. For years different studies, assessments, reviews of the sector called for interventions to reduce OOP as it is the most unfair/regressive way of funding health services.