Iranian Journal of

Background and Objectives: Health insurance would guarantee people security against disease and health problems. Given the key role of health insurance in achieving the goals of justice and reducing the out-of-pocket payment, this study aimed to evaluate the performance of Iran health insurance using the DEA model in 2014.

Methods: This was a cross sectional study. The study population included all Iran health insurance organizations. DEA input and output criteria were selected by targeted library and documentary review and the data were collected accordingly. The determinants of efficiency were evaluated using liner regression.

Results: The mean technical, management, and scale efficiency of Iran health insurance head offices was 0.593, 0.761, and 0.721, respectively. Considering the findings, the capacity of efficiency promotion at these head offices was approximately 41%. Regarding technical efficiency, 5 head offices had the maximum efficiency (1), 7 head offices had efficiency between 0.5 and 1, and 19 head offices had efficiency less than 0.5. In addition, the variables of population and total number of institutions had a significant impact on efficiency.

Conclusion: Based on defined variables, input oriented AP-DEA model was appropriate. The results showed a great capacity for increasing technical efficiency in the Iranian health insurance organizations which could be increased by benchmarking efficient and reference organizations and also adjusting their input. For this purpose, downsizing and agility of the Iranian health insurance organizations based on the e-government clause are proposed for administrative system reform.

Background and Objectives: Productivity and efficiency are the most important and the most common mechanisms of evaluation and measurement of the performance of an enterprise including the Social Security Organization. In the past decades, performance evaluation of various economic sectors has been attractive to researchers in different disciplines. Thus, the aim of this study was to measure the efficiency of the direct treatment section of treatment management units of Social Security Organization by data envelopment analysis method. 

Methods: This descriptive- analytic study was conducted to measure the efficiency of the direct treatment section of treatment management units of Social Security Organization through the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method in 2014. Data and relevant statistics were collected from the Statistical Center of Social Security Organization. The Deap2.1 software was used to calculate the efficiency and the EMS software was used to calculate the super efficiency. Then, the hypotheses of the research were studied using the Stata software.

Results: The average technical efficiency, managerial efficiency, and scale efficiency in 2014 was 0.924, 0.992, and 0.932, respectively. Twelve decision making units (DMUs) had the maximum technical efficiency (1), 16 DMUs had technical efficiency between 0.8 and 1, and 3 units had technical efficiency less than 0.8.

Conclusion: This study introduces a functional pattern to managers of Social Security Organization that enables them to have more accurate planning for the development and saving of resources.