Regulatory Fees at Children's Department in Klatovy Hospital

Regulatory Fees at Children´s Department in Klatovy Hospital The bachelor thesis deals with effects and impacts after an introduction of regulatory fees in the health service. An aim of the thesis was to ascertain effects of the introduction of regulatory fees at Children´s Department in Klatovy Hospital. First I investigated how the fees influenced an exploitation of the hospital care, and then I investigated whether the fees influenced a possibility of parents to accompany their children during the hospitalization. In the theoretical part I deal with basic definitions of terms related to the issue of regulatory fees. These include concepts of a health, an illness, a health policy, health systems, a structure of the health system in the Czech Republic and a definition of the regulatory fees, their types, an importance of their introduction, a protection limit, effects of the introduction and a consumption of the health services after the introduction of the fees. In the practical part I attend to a description of objectives and hypotheses, a research methodology and an interpretation of results. The research part was realized by using a quantitative form of the research, I used a method of interviewing, a questionnaire technique. As an auxiliary method I chose a document analysis {--} secondary data analysis. The research sample consisted of the parents accompanying their children for an examination at an outpatient clinic and parents accompanying hospitalized children. The research results showed that regulatory fees do not influence the possibility of parents to accompany their children during the hospitalization and although parents say that in case of repeated hospitalizations the fees could influence this possibility, they continue to accompany their children during their hospitalization and on the contrary, there is an increasing number of the accompanying. The research also showed that at Children´s Department a use of First Aid Medical Service (Baby Call) decreased after the introduction of the fees and thus it was not further misused. On the contrary there was no decline in the number of hospitalized patients. I suppose that this bachelor thesis can be used for a better orientation in this new area of the health care charges and for an outline of real impacts which were brought into the health care in the first two years. Just because of the relatively short period of the existence of the fees, I would recommend to continue monitoring the impact of the charging and to follow any further changes in legislation