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Background. Determining the cost of laboratory tests is a significant factor in the context of economic analysis and management of clinical diagnostic laboratories. Information about costs allows medical organizations to plan operational activities more efficiently, optimize resource utilization, and exercise control over expenditures. These measures are aimed at improving the financial position and enhancing the operational efficiency of the laboratories.Objective: to review various methods for calculating the cost of laboratory tests.Material and methods. The study included the collection and analysis of publications on calculating cost of laboratory tests, determining their prime cost in PubMed/MEDLINE and Google Scholar databases, as well as in Google and Yandex search engines for similar “cost laboratory test” query. The regulatory documents of the Russian Federation in this area were considered.Results. For calculating the prime cost of laboratory tests such methods as direct costing, regulatory prime costing, total prime costing, activity-based costing (ABC), standard costing, costing for base service, department costing, cost-volume analysis are used. The ABC and standard cost methods provide the most accurate assessment of the impact of various factors.Conclusion. The approaches established by regulatory documents do not contradict each other and represent the implementation of total costing method. At the same time, a medical organization may use other methods for calculating the cost of laboratory tests, depending on the objectives of the analysis, the specifics of the laboratory and the cost accounting method adopted in accounting policy, the management accounting system.

Background. Each constituent entity of the Russian Federation (RF) on the basis of the territorial programme of state guarantees of free medical care for citizens forms a tariff agreement (TA) on payment for medical care. Despite the list of requirements to the content and structure of the tariff agreement established by the decree of the Ministry of Health of the RF, there are significant differences among the regional tariff agreements in terms of content and completeness of the information provided.Objective: a comparative analysis of TA of the RF constituent entities and additional agreements to them to identify differences in their structure and content.Material and methods. To carry out the analysis, the data of TA for the full calendar year 2022 were systematised into a single database with the allocation of the main parameters regulated by legal documents. On the basis of the database, the availability and form of information presentation in the TA were analysed.Results. The differences were revealed, which can be divided into two groups. In the first group, they relate to the content and structure of TA; in the second group, to the presentation of TA in public domain. The differences are related to the information content of TA, details of tariffs for medical services, the presence or absence of tariffs for separate medical services, as well as the presentation and formats of TA files on the websites of territorial compulsory health insurance funds.Conclusion. To date, there are still a significant number of differences between TA of the RF constituent entities. The lack of unification in data presentation in the regions increases the risk of errors in comparative analysis, which may ultimately affect the correctness of its results presented to the authorities for decision-making in the health care sector. The new unified form of TA will make it possible to eliminate the above-mentioned differences in content and presentation by bringing the data to a single format.

The article presents a review of current and alternative methods for planning the scope and financing of medical care in the subjects of the Russian Federation. The relevance of the issue is due to the imperfection of the current planning model, which stimulate representatives of the profile bodies and independent experts to develop alternative methods. The current approaches and legal documents regulating the procedure for distributing the scope of medical care and financial resources to pay for this care are discribed. The analysis of alternative methods shows how different demographic and infrastructural features of regions can be used to redistribute the scope of medical care and the corresponding financial support.

Aim. The evaluation of absolute and relative difference in the growth of standard rates and financing of medical help based on the calculation for Program on State Guarantees to Deliver Free Medical Care to the Citizens of the Russian Federation (PSG) by the parameters approved by the Decree of the Government for 2019 and 2020.Materials and methods. The evaluation was performed by the methods of mathematic modeling. Mathematic modeling of the calculation of the volumes of medical help (MH) and financial costs in the subjects of the RF was based on the Decrees of the Government for 2019 and 2020 and the method of calculation of the standard rates specified in the Letter on the economic grounds for territorial PSG. Modeling for each region was used to compare the absolute and relative difference in the growth of standard rates for the obtained values in the absolute and relative expression of the calculated planned parameters of PSG for 2019 and 2020 according to the described method in terms of types, conditions, and profiles of medical help.Results. It was revealed that the existing standard rates for financial costs did not provide a uniform growth of costs by all the conditions and types of MH. The growth of financing by types and conditions varied from 1.43 to 9.59% of the 2019 baseline in the RF. Certain “specialized” (profile) standard rates within the conditions of MH showed a significant growth at a slower growth of financing of the rest of MH types (3.86% for all-day inpatient service and -0.6% (decrease in financing) for day-time inpatient service). The calculation of the model for the subjects of the RF showed even greater fluctuations: from –0.11% to –3.03% for day-time inpatient service and from 1.35% to 7.27% for all-day inpatients service.Conclusion. Despite the annual growth of the financing of PSG, redistribution of the budget within the conditions of medical service provision is uneven. This situation provides background for the improvement of the mechanisms of planning of MH within PSG using obligatory modeling and balanced standard rates for the subjects of the RF.