Economic costs for the production of health services: From cost of inputs to cost of case-management

Objective. To generate information on costs of health services. Material and methods. Using Kessner's criteria the tracer conditions selected were: hypertension, diabetes, diarrhea and pneumonia. Case-management definitions were established and then, -using the case-management costing method- the production functions, inputs and unit costs necessary to meet the demand for medical care per condition. Data were processed in a spreadsheet software package to estimate in-patient and out-patient case-management costs. Results. Findings from this study show that using inpatient and out-patient case-management costing it is possible to identify the relative weight of the different production functions and inputs. Using the relative frequencies, both production functions and inputs were classified in high, medium and low impact on the total case-management cost. Conclusions. This information suggests that planning, organization and resource allocation should be guided by inpatient and out-patient service demands for each tracer conditions. In addition we suggests direct actions to estimulate the obtention of economic earnings from resources utilization in the most efficient way.