Background: There has been a substantial increase in reimbursement for outpatient laboratory services in recent years. This article gives an overview of the use of such laboratory services and discusses measures for improved efficiency.
Material and methods: We have analysed reimbursement to the specialist health care for the period 2002-04.
Results: In the period 2002-04 the reimbursement to public laboratories increased by 42%. There has been a substantial growth in all reimbursements groups, especially for "General analysis for molecular biological methods" (236%). Reimbursement to private laboratories have increased by 24%, similar to the increase in general clinical chemistry. There has been a trend towards using the expensive reimbursement groups more often, especially for public laboratories. There is substantial variation in the use of laboratory services between the health regions.
Discussion: Our results indicate that the growth and variation in the use of laboratory services cannot be explained by deteriorated health or more illness in the population. The variation indicates that the use of laboratory services is not optimal. Establishment of a national laboratory system within specialized health care may contribute to a more knowledge-based use of laboratory services.