Background: Public providers in low to middle income countries face enormous pressures to meet the complex needs particularly in war and conflict areas. This study aimed to benchmark the unit costs across multiple public providers in Jordan to increase understanding of the health care cost outlook in the region and inform cost contaminant on service delivery or purchase.

Methods: Cost analysis of healthcare from the perspective of public providers in Jordan was performed. Unit costs were defined as the cost of one unit of “output” including admission, inpatient days, outpatient visits, emergency visits, and surgical operations. Unit costs per hospital output were estimated using standard average costing in a top down approach. Total health expenditures of a provider were divided by the total output produced to determine the unit costs. Unit costs were estimated in Jordanian dinars (exchange rate 1 JOD = US$ 1.41).

Results: Average unit cost per admission in Jordan was 782.300 JOD (US$ 1,101.80), per inpatient day was 236.600 JOD (US$ 333.20), per bed day was 172.900 JOD (US$ 244.90), per outpatient visit was 58.400 JOD (US$ 82.30), per operation was 449.600 JOD (US$ 633.20) and per emergency room visit was 31.800 JOD (US$ 44.80). The specialities of ICU/CCU and OB/GYN presented the highest unit costs per inpatient days across providers: US$ 532.90 and US$ 510.70, respectively. Unit costs varied depending on service utilization, type of service, and organizational outset. These factors must be considered for allocative and reimbursement decisions.

Conclusions: Health cost analysis is essential to guide the effective use of resources in countries face growing health constraints. Understanding costs incurred for patient care is valuable to aid in health service purchase and delivery decisions particularly in countries thriving to overcome health inequity through a holistic purist to universal health coverage.