OBJECTIVES: e: Health care expenditure has been increasing in both developing and developed nations, but control or improved efficiency can be obtained by applying health economics in management. The unit cost of health care services plays a critical role in health economic analyses that involve health economic evaluations. The objective of this study was to identify the unit costs of medical services at the General Hospital in Lam Dong.

METHODS: A standard costing approach was applied to calculate unit cost of medical services. This study was a retrospective cost analysis. All cost centers in the institute were identified and classified into two categories: temporary cost centers (TCCs) and absorbing cost centers (ACCs). The unit cost of each medical service was estimated by a cost-to-charge ratio method.

RESULTS: The total costs of the Lam Dong General Hospital in the fiscal year 2015 were 4,560,891 USD. The contributions of capital costs, material costs and labour costs for all cost centers to the total direct cost were 16.36%, 49.07% and 34.57%, respectively. After allocation, the direct and indirect costs of all ACCs were 3,590,168 USD and 970,723 USD, accounting for 78.72% and 21.28%, respectively. The cost-to-charge ratios of the remaining medical services ranged from 0.36 to 164.68.

CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study can help hospital administrators understand their cost structures and run their facilities more efficiently. The study also provides unit costs for government data and aids in completing the Vietnam standard cost list. This will be helpful for health economic evaluations.