OBJECTIVES The aim of our study was to present the changes in curative-preventive providers’ ownership structure in Hungary, mainly focusing on last decade’s data.

METHODS We examined providers contracted by the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund Administration (NHIFA) for reimbursement. Through a retrospective, quantitative study the number of for-profit providers and their share from the Health Insurance Fund were assessed between 1995-2017. Number of providers and their share according to ownership type (central or local government, for-profit, non-profit) were analysed in detail between 2009-2017. Data were derived from the NHIFA.

RESULTS For-profit enterprises received 6.91% of reimbursement in 1995. This indicator showed its highest value between 2009-2011, when the private sector’s share was over 30%. The sector takes 23.1% from the Fund’s curative-preventive budget in 2017. Both number and reimbursement share of local government and for-profit providers decreased between 2009-2017, while central government bodies and non-profit providers showed an increase in the same indicators. Number and market share can deviate greatly in some types of health care (30.4% of national outpatient care providers got 69.5% of outpatient-reimbursement; 15.8% of dialysis centres operated by enterprises received 85.4% of all dialysis-related public funding in 2017).

CONCLUSIONS Decentralization, privatisation and re-centralization redesigned ownership structure over and over in Hungarian health care in the last decades. It is necessary to examine the efficiency of resource allocation regularly, for the sake of an efficient and effective patient care.