OBJECTIVES: Hungary was the first country in Europe fully implementing a DRG (Diagnosis Related Groups) like financing method for the whole hospital care as early as 1993. In 2004 in addition to the DRG like financing technique, the so-called performance volume limit (PVL) was introduced forming an artificial financial cap for the activity based financing of the Hungarian hospitals. The aim of our study is to analyse the effect of performance-volume limit (PVL) on the performance indicators of acute oncology care, with special respect to the health insurance reimbursement not paid to health care providers. METHODS: Data were derived from the nationwide administrative dataset of the National Health Insurance Fund Administration (OEP) covering the period 2006-2008. We analysed the effect of PVL according to medical specialities. We calculated the average annual reimbursement rate of DRG cost-weight with and without the application of PVL. The loss due to PVL was calculated both by monetary terms and as the % of annual revenue. RESULTS: The loss of medical specialities measured by monetary units (Hungarian forint, HUF) and as a percent of their revenues was the followingin 2008-ban: Oncology 1327 million HUF (4,7%), Cardiology 791 million HUF (3,0%), Gynecology and obstetrics 772 million HUF (3,0%), internal medicine 708 million HUF (3,3%), intensive care 661 million HUF (2,5%), surgery 637 million HUF (3,2%), pediatrics 614 million HUF (3,9%), traumatology 545 million HUF (2,5%), radiotherapy 438 million HUF (3,1%). CONCLUSIONS: The introduction of performance-volume limit had significantly different effect on the different medical specialities. Oncology care can be cosidered as one of the largest loser of the application of performance-volume limit.