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Med. Pr. 2006;57(6):567-571

Calculation of workers' health care costs

Kalkulacja kosztów ochrony zdrowia pracujących

Izabela Rydlewska-Liszkowska Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland

Abstract

In different health care systems, there are different schemes of organization and principles of financing activities aimed at ensuring the working population health and safety. Regardless of the scheme and the range of health care provided, economists strive for rationalization of costs (including their reduction). This applies to both employers who include workers' health care costs into indirect costs of the market product manufacture and health care institutions, which provide health care services. In practice, new methods of setting costs of workers' health care facilitate regular cost control, acquisition of detailed information about costs, and better adjustment of information to planning and control needs in individual health care institutions.For economic institutions and institutions specialized in workersś health care, a traditional cost-effect calculation focused on setting costs of individual products (services) is useful only if costs are relatively low and the output of simple productsis not very high. But when products form aggregates of numerous actions like those involved in occupational medicine services, the method of activity based costing (ABC), representing the process approach, is much more useful. According to this approachcosts are attributed to the product according to resources used during different activities involved in its production. The calculation of costs proceeds through allocation of all direct costs for specific processes in a given institution. Indirect costs are settled on the basis of resources used during the implementation of individual tasks involved in the process of making a new product. In this method, so called map of processes/actions consisted in the manufactured product and their interrelations are of particular importance. Advancements in the cost-effect for the management of health care institutions depend on their managerial needs. Current trends in this regard primarily depend on treating all cost reference subjects as cost objects and taking account of all their interrelations. Final products, specific assignments, resources and activities may all be regarded as cost objects. The ABC method is characterized by a very high informative value in terms of setting prices of products in the area of workers' health care.
It also facilitates the assessment of costs of individual activities under a multidisciplinary approach to health care and the setting costs of varied products. The ABC method provides precise data on the consumption of resources, such as human labor or various materials.

Key words

health care, costs calculations, principles of financing, ABC method