OBJECTIVES : Analysis of demographic characteristics of patients receiving privately financed health care services of Hungarian publicly financed inpatient healthcare providers, and the evaluation of solvent demand.

METHODS : The data of the retrospective analysis derived from the database of National Health Insurance Fund Administration, and Hungarian Central Statistic Office. We analysed the demographic characteristics of patients receiving privately financed health care services in the year 2017 by Hungarian publicly financed inpatient healthcare providers with descriptive statistical methods. The solvent demand represents the association between the weight number of privately financed services by counties and the average gross earnings (Pearson correlation coefficient).

RESULTS : The all national DRG weight number was 2,423,129, of which the weight number of privately financed health care was 6,118 (0.25%). Publicly financed health care services are mostly used by patients over 46 years (74%), patients ages 0-18 account for 10%, patients ages 18-45 account for 16%. In the case of privately financed health care services the ratio of patients were 54%for ages 19-45, 8% for ages 0-18, and 38% over 46 years. The privately financed health care services account for 0.21% by patients ages 0-18 of all health care services (511 weight number), patients ages 18-45 account for 0.85% (3,302 weight number), patients over 46 years account for 0.13% (2,306 weight number).The prices of theprivately financed health care services were lower (case mix 0.72 vs. 0.96). The case mix of theprivately financed health care services was higher by women (0.73 vs. 0.71) and increased by age (ages 0-18: 0.55; ages 19-45: 0.71; over 46 years: 0.80). Significant correlation was detected between average gross earnings and volume of privately financed health care services (R=0,767).

CONCLUSIONS : There was significant demographic differences between consumer groups receiving privately and publicly financed health care services.