Enrollment and Uptake of Health Care Financing Schemes among Adult Inpatients in Baringo County, Kenya

A high burden of healthcare expenditure precludes the poor from access to quality healthcare services. Due to the dearth of studies detailing healthcare financing in rural-based counties in Kenya, the study examined enrolment and uptake of healthcare financing schemes among adult inpatients in Baringo County, Kenya. The study employed a descriptive cross-sectional research design and was situated in Baringo County Referral Hospital with a target population of about 8,400 monthly or more than 100,000 patients annually. A sample size of 398 patients/and or caregivers was selected based on the stratified simple random sampling method. The results indicated age > 35 years (OR = 0.76120, p = 0.004), Occupation (OR = 0.65730, p = 0.000), income levels (OR = 1.67921, p = 0.000), marital status (OR = 0.38342, p = 0.000) and household size > 4 but less than 9 (OR = 3.66847, p = 0.000) and explain about 21.58 per cent in the enrolment in a healthcare insurance scheme. The conclusions are that demographic factors (age, marital status, occupation, income levels and household size) influence enrolment This implies that young unmarried individuals Ksh 20,000 and with household size < 5 persons were more likely to enrol for a healthcare financial scheme. The study recommends that a universal healthcare financing scheme should be implemented to make healthcare financing more affordable and accessible through policy interventions