Oscarson N, Källestål C, Karlsson G
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Umeå, Sweden.
Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 1998 Jun;26(3):160-5. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0528.1998.tb01944.x.
Twenty-six Swedish dental health care clinics participating in the intervention study "Evaluation of caries preventive measures" have been analysed with focus on costs, with the aim of demonstrating techniques suitable for evaluating direct dental care costs and also finding out whether charges are acceptable as a proxy for real costs. Three different approaches to calculating unit costs are discussed: average treatment time cost and two methods of different allocation of overhead cost. Average treatment time cost shows treatment time cost regardless of who (dentist, dental hygienist or nurse) provides the dental care. The other two methods reflect both the differences of treatment costs depending on practitioners' skill level and competence (salary) and the methods of handling overhead cost allocation. Our conclusions are that the proposed methods seem useful for evaluating costs in cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis. The alternative to average treatment time cost or unit time cost depends on what data is available and the perspective of the analysis. This study also concludes that charges are not sufficient as an alternative to a more detailed cost evaluation, at least not in Swedish public dental health care, since charges do not cover costs.
参与“龋齿预防措施评估”干预研究的26家瑞典牙科保健诊所已围绕成本进行了分析，目的是展示适用于评估直接牙科护理成本的技术，并查明收费作为实际成本的替代指标是否可接受。讨论了三种计算单位成本的不同方法：平均治疗时间成本以及两种不同的间接费用分配方法。平均治疗时间成本显示的是治疗时间成本，而不考虑提供牙科护理的人员（牙医、牙科保健员或护士）是谁。另外两种方法既反映了取决于从业者技能水平和能力（薪资）的治疗成本差异，也反映了处理间接费用分配的方法。我们的结论是，所提出的方法似乎有助于在成本效益分析和成本效益分析中评估成本。平均治疗时间成本或单位时间成本的选择取决于可获得的数据以及分析的视角。本研究还得出结论，收费不足以替代更详细的成本评估，至少在瑞典公共牙科保健领域是这样，因为收费并不涵盖成本。
