Dictionary

The Dictionary provides concise definitions of health economics terms, arranged alphabetically for quick reference. Use it to understand unfamiliar terminology or confirm the meaning of a specific term.

1–50 of 666 terms matching “Cost”

A

Anxiety Disorder CostCost of Anxiety, Anxiety Burden
The total economic burden of anxiety disorders, covering direct treatment costs, lost workplace productivity, and broader impacts on quality of life.
Average CostCost per Unit, Mean Cost
Total cost divided by the quantity of output produced, giving the cost per unit of service.

B

Baumol EffectBaumol Cost Disease, Service-Sector Cost Disease, Cost Disease
A phenomenon in which wages in labour-intensive, low-productivity-growth sectors rise alongside wages in high-productivity sectors, driving up the labour-intensive sector's relative cost.
Benefit-Cost RatioBCR, Cost-Benefit Ratio
The ratio of the monetised value of a programme's benefits to its costs, used as a summary measure in cost-benefit analysis.
Break-Even AnalysisBreakeven Analysis, Cost-Volume Analysis
An analysis identifying the point at which the costs and benefits, or revenues, of an activity are equal.
Budget OverrunCost Overrun, Budget Overspend
Spending that exceeds the amount allocated in an approved budget, typically requiring explanation, reallocated funds, or a formal amendment.

C

Coinsurance RateCoinsurance Percentage, Cost-Share Rate
The specific percentage of a covered service's cost an insured person is responsible for paying under a coinsurance arrangement.
CostResource Expenditure, Monetary Value of Resources
The economic value of resources consumed or displaced when a healthcare service, programme or intervention is provided.
Cost AccountingCost Accountancy, Management Accounting
The branch of accounting concerned with recording, classifying, and analysing the costs of an organisation's activities, products, or services.
Cost AdjustmentCost Uplift, Cost Re-Basing
The process of modifying a cost estimate to allow for inflation, currency differences, or changes in clinical practice, so costs from different periods can be compared.
Cost AllocationShared Cost Allocation, Overhead Allocation, Indirect Cost Allocation, Cost Apportionment
Cost allocation is the assignment of shared or indirect resource costs to defined services, activities, or populations using an explicit allocation rule.
Cost AnalysisCosting Study, Cost Estimation Study
A study that estimates the resources consumed by a health intervention without relating those costs to health outcomes.
Cost CentreCost Center, Cost Pool
A specific department within a healthcare organisation to which costs are allocated and tracked separately for management and accounting purposes.
Cost Centre BudgetCost-Centre Allocation, Responsibility Budget
A budget allocated to a specific organisational unit responsible for incurring costs, such as a hospital department, without generating revenue.
Cost ContainmentCost Curbing, Spending Growth Control, Cost Control
Efforts aimed at controlling or reducing the rate of growth in healthcare spending, including price regulation, utilisation management, and payment reform.
Cost ConversionCurrency Conversion of Costs, Cost Rebasing
The adjustment of cost data from one currency, price year, or unit basis to another so costs can be meaningfully compared.
Cost DescriptionCost Reporting Study, Descriptive Costing
A study that reports the costs associated with a health condition or intervention without comparing them to an alternative or to outcomes.
Cost DriverCost Determinant, Spending Driver
A factor that causes the total cost of an activity to change, such as patient volume, case complexity, or length of stay.
Cost Driver AnalysisDriver Analysis, Cost-Factor Analysis
A systematic examination of the factors responsible for changes in total cost, used to break an overall increase into its component causes.
Cost FindingCost Allocation Process, Overhead Allocation
A cost accounting process allocating indirect and overhead costs across specific departments or services, producing information for management and payer reporting.
Cost FunctionCost-Output Function, Production-Cost Relationship
A mathematical representation of the relationship between the quantity of output produced and the total cost of producing it.
Cost IdentificationCost Categorisation, Cost Inclusion Decision
The process of determining which categories of resource use should be included in an economic evaluation before quantities and unit costs are measured.
Cost LimitCost Ceiling, Allowable Cost Cap
A maximum amount a payer will recognise as allowable cost for a service category when calculating reimbursement, a cost-containment mechanism.
Cost MeasurementCost Quantification, Resource Costing
The process of quantifying the resources consumed by a health intervention in monetary terms, forming the empirical foundation of economic evaluation.
Cost MinimisationCost Minimization, Least-Cost Selection
An approach to selecting among interventions already shown to produce equivalent outcomes, in which the choice reduces to the lowest-cost option.
Cost Outcome DescriptionCost-Outcome Study, Cost and Outcome Report
A study that reports both the costs and outcomes of an intervention without directly comparing them against an alternative.
Cost per QALYCost/QALY, Cost per Quality-Adjusted Life Year
A measure of value for money in cost-utility analysis, calculated as incremental cost divided by the quality-adjusted life years gained relative to a comparator.
Cost per QALY ThresholdQALY Threshold, Threshold per QALY
The maximum cost per quality-adjusted life year a health system is willing to pay for a health gain, used as the decision criterion in cost-utility analysis.
Cost ProjectionCost Forecast, Projected Spending
An estimate of future costs based on current spending patterns, anticipated changes in utilisation, or expected shifts in treatment practice.
Cost SavingsSavings, Realised Savings
A reduction in healthcare expenditure achieved through an intervention or policy, relative to what spending would otherwise have been.
Cost SharingCost-Sharing, Patient Cost Share
The general term for the portion of healthcare costs an insured person pays directly, covering deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance.
Cost Sharing AgreementCost-Sharing Agreement, Payer-Manufacturer Cost Split
An arrangement dividing a treatment's cost burden between payer and manufacturer according to a predefined formula, managing affordability within a fixed budget.
Cost Sharing DesignCost-Sharing Structure, Benefit Cost-Share Design
The specific combination of deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, and out-of-pocket maximums selected for a plan, determining enrollees' overall financial exposure.
Cost ShiftingCost Transfer, Cross-Payer Shifting
The practice of redirecting the financial burden of healthcare costs from one payer to another, such as charging privately insured patients more.
Cost StandardizationCost Standardisation, Comparable Costing
The process of adjusting cost estimates so they are expressed in comparable terms, such as a common currency or price year, across studies.
Cost StructureCost Composition, Cost Mix
The composition of an organisation's or intervention's total costs across categories, such as fixed and variable, or direct and indirect.
Cost ValuationValuation of Costs, Resource Valuation, Monetary Valuation of Resource Use, Costing Valuation
Cost valuation is the assignment of monetary values to measured resource use in accordance with a specified perspective, setting, price year, and decision purpose.
Cost VarianceCost Deviation, Actual-vs-Budget Cost Gap
The difference between expected and actual cost for a given activity or service, often signalling inefficiency or changing input prices.
Cost-Based PricingMarkup Pricing, Cost-Plus Model
A pricing strategy setting price based on production cost plus a desired profit margin, rather than primarily on value provided or competitor pricing.
Cost-Based ReimbursementCost Reimbursement, Retrospective Cost Payment
A payment methodology reimbursing a provider based on actual documented cost, unlike prospective payment systems that pay a fixed amount regardless.
Cost-Benefit PolicyMonetised Policy Appraisal, CBA Policy Framework
A policy analysis approach expressing both costs and benefits of alternative options in monetary terms, enabling direct cross-sector comparison.
Cost-Effective InterventionGood-Value Intervention, Efficient Intervention
An intervention whose additional cost relative to its comparator is acceptable given its additional health benefit, judged against a cost-effectiveness threshold.
Cost-EffectivenessValue for Money, Efficiency of Spending
A property describing the relationship between an intervention's cost and its health effect relative to an alternative, usually summarised as an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio.
Cost-Effectiveness AcceptabilityCE Acceptability, Acceptability Probability
The probability that an intervention offers good value for money at a given willingness-to-pay threshold, accounting for uncertainty in the cost and effect estimates.
Cost-Effectiveness Acceptability Curve (CEAC)Cost-Effectiveness Acceptability Curve, CEAC
A graph plotting the probability an intervention is cost-effective against a range of possible values for the cost-effectiveness threshold.
Cost-Effectiveness Acceptability FrontierCEAF, Acceptability Frontier
A curve showing, across willingness-to-pay thresholds, the probability that the option with the highest expected net benefit at each threshold is truly optimal.
Cost-Effectiveness AnalysisCEA, Cost per Outcome Analysis
Cost-effectiveness analysis compares healthcare alternatives by relating differences in their costs to differences in outcomes measured using the same natural unit, such as cases prevented or life-years gained.
Cost-Effectiveness CriterionCE Criterion, Value Threshold Standard
The specific standard, typically a threshold, an assessment body uses to judge whether a technology's ICER represents acceptable value for money.
Cost-Effectiveness FrontierCE Frontier, Cost-Effectiveness Efficiency Frontier, Efficient Frontier in Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
The cost-effectiveness frontier is the boundary of feasible strategies whose expected cost and effect combinations are not ruled out by strict or extended dominance under a specified decision framework.
Cost-Effectiveness League TableCE League Table, ICER League Table
A ranked list comparing incremental cost-effectiveness ratios across many separate studies, intended to help prioritise resource allocation across a health system.