Analysis of Cost Price and Net Profit of Paraclinic Services in Private and Public Sectors: A Case Study of Kerman City 2014

Cost is becoming a growing concern for the managers of health and treatment institutes both in private and public sectors. Based on the opinions of pathology and radiology specialists and experts, one private and one public center for radiology and laboratory were selected to study in Kerman City. This is a cross-sectional and applied study. The two centers were similar in frequency of their services, different tests they were conducting, and their number of personnel. Afterwards, the costs of services in both fields were determined using the activity-based costing method. This study was carried out from March 21 to September 22, 2014. The costs of services in both private and public sectors were compared to the tariffs of the Ministry of Health in 2014. Laboratory results indicated that the costs in all the selected tests were higher than the tariffs and the largest difference (app. 84,930 Rls) was observed in the TSH test while the smallest difference was observed in the ferritin test (11,940 Rls). However in the private sector, vitamin D and FBS tests were not profitable with differences of about 5500 and 6500 Rls, respectively. In other tests, the costs in the private sector were lower than the tariffs for the private sector. In the private sector radiology center, only the MRI services were not profitable but the other services were. The cost of MRI services in the private sector studied in this research was 190,000 Rls higher than the private sector tariffs. In this study, the results showed that CT scan services were the most profitable services and the price difference was about 203,000 Rls per service. However, all of the radiology services were unprofitable in the public sector and the largest price difference was seen in MRI services which was about 590,000 Rls per service.