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Costs/charges Measuring the cost of a health care intervention in monetary terms is the cornerstone of all health economic analyses. The cost of a service can be defined in local currencies as the resources consumed or depleted to provide a service. These are in contrast to charges, which may be regulated or set by the market place and may not reflect the true cost of providing a service. Indeed, as charges may reflect profit or loss, the value may be falsely inflated or deflated. The measurement of costs can be divided into costs to the health service, costs to other sectors (e.g. government social service payments), and costs to the patient and family (e.g. loss of earnings by the patient or time spent caring for a relative). Costs are often classified as direct, indirect, intangible and ‘other’. While these terms are commonplace, different authors may use them differently and hence careful reading is required. Definitions of the types of cost are as follows.