Living Standards Measurements Study - Serbia 2002 - 2007

7.8. Health care expenditures
In 2007, health care expenditures amounted to
4.5 percent of total household expenditure. The
share of health care expenditures in 2002 was
slightly higher (5.4 percent). Graph 7 shows the
share of health care expenditures according to the
financial situation of households. It is indicative that
all the observed groups of population spend around
4.5 percent to 4.6 percent of their total expenditure
on health care, except those living below the
poverty line and the poorest households according
to expenditure quintiles (3.1 percent and 3.9
percent). If we consider the absolute values of
average expenditures on health care, the differences
become more prominent. People below poverty line
spent only 188 dinars per household member per
month, the poorest according to expenditure
quintiles, 314 dinars and the richest 1 685 dinars
(Graph 8).
Graph 7.7. Proportion of health care expenditure
of total expenditures according to financial
situation of household
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%
Non poor
Poor
Poorest
2
3
Total
4
Richest
Average expenditures on health services
according to the type of health institutions show that
the expenses for private health care services were
much higher than those for state health care
services. The average expenditure on private
outpatient services were 4 times higher than on state
health services, for hospital treatment 5 times
higher, and for dental health care services 3 times
higher (Table 1).
Graph 7.8. Health care expenditure according to
financial situation of households* (dinars)
Richest
4
3
2
Poorest
Poor
Non poor
Total
188
314
530
704
925
895
851
1685
Dinars
* All household members are included whether using
health services or not
The differences in the average expenditure are
partly due to the frequency of use of these services
among the population. It is not surprising that a very
small portion of population that used private
hospital treatment (0.1 percent) had high
expenditures and that among the richest, the
expenditures exceed the total expenditures per
household member, and that this type of services
was never used by poor population and so there are
no recorded expenditures. State outpatient
expenditures amount to 8 percent of total
expenditures of the poorest population, and 4
percent (half the amount) spent by the richest.
Hospital health care is the most expensive sector of
health care system; therefore, it is not surprising that
the expenditure on hospital stays in state hospitals
was the largest expenditure, regardless of the
financial state of population. However, the
proportion of expenditure on state hospital treatment
was larger among the poorest (29 percent) than
among the richest (20 percent).
Table 2 provides average expenditure per
individual services both on outpatient and hospital
services in relation to the financial state of the
population. Expenditures on drugs and medical
consumables were the largest expenditures both in
primary and hospital health care. The amounts of
expenditure in the majority of the examined services
are two to three times larger among the rich
compared to the poor (among health care users) and
expenditures on transportation and hospital stay are
6 times larger.
90 Living Standards Measurements Study - Serbia 2002 - 2007