[Analysis of the variability of primary care costs].

Objective: To find the costs of Primary Care services and centres and identify the variables which enable the possible differences between them to be explained.
Design: Cost analysis study.
Setting: Primary Care Centres.
Participants: 15 Primary Care Centres managed by the Catalan Health Institute.
Measurements and Main Results: Costs of chapters 1 (staff), 11 (running costs) and 1V (medicines) of the accounts for the 1993 exercise and possible cost variability between services and Health Centres were analysed. The cost per inhabitant of services was, in order of importance: general medicine (18,873 pesetas per inhabitant), Paediatrics (16,204), Odontology (638) and Social Work (255). The mean cost of Primary Care Centres was 19,137 pesetas per inhabitant. The variables which seemed to explain variability of operating costs were: for general medicine, the inhabitant to doctor ratio (r2 0.31, p < 0.02); for Paediatrics, the number of attendances (r2 0.35, p < 0.01); and for health centres, the inhabitant to doctor ratio, teaching and number of attendances (r2 0.75, p < 0.001).
Conclusions: The analysis of costs of services and centres enables us to identify and compare results between different suppliers, which can be useful when we need parameters to measure efficiency.