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Financing of health care services in Hungary

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Abstract

In this paper we give a practical overview of the changes in the financing of health care in Hungary. We describe the financing system of general practitioners, home care (nursing), out-patient care and the acute and chronic care of hospitals. We show how the financial system has changed after the political changes of 1990. The global budget approach of the 1980s was replaced by performance-related financing methods including the ICPM (International Classification of Procedures in Medicine) code system of the WHO (World Health Organization) in out-patient care and the introduction of HBCS (Homogén Betegségcsoportok, “Homogeneous Disease Groups”) in in-patient care. We underline that the efforts made towards reforming health care financing resulted in an activity-related financing system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Policy and Coordination, National Health Insurance Fund Administration, Budapest, Hungary

    Imre Boncz

  2. Department of Curative and Preventive Services, National Health Insurance Fund Administration, Budapest, Hungary

    Júlia Nagy & László Kőrösi

  3. Baranya County Health Insurance Fund Administration, Pécs, Hungary

    Andor Sebestyén

  4. Department of Health Insurance, Institute of Diagnostics and Management, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary

    Imre Boncz

Authors
  1. Imre Boncz
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  2. Júlia Nagy
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  3. Andor Sebestyén
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  4. László Kőrösi
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Correspondence to Imre Boncz.

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Boncz, I., Nagy, J., Sebestyén, A. et al. Financing of health care services in Hungary. Eur J Health Econom 5, 252–258 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-004-0228-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-004-0228-3

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