while in oecd countries households pay on average of the cost of pharmaceuticals out of pocket in kazakhstan the figure is oecd medicines prescribed in primary care are generally paid for by the patient and only provided free of charge for patients with a listed socially significant disease it is not known however the extent to which hospital drug coverage in terms of quantities is available for any given condition to alleviate the cost burden of medicines for patients the government has been gradually expanding the outpatient medicine benefit package since its introduction in but high oop costs persist