Influence of fees to support economic stability of Czech hospitals

Currently worldwide interest is in optimizing processes in healthcare, especially in hospitals. The term Lean Healthcare in hospitals can be introduced both in the sense of core medical processes, but also in the sense of lean management, or lean supporting processes. Currently in the Czech Republic managers and staff of hospitals need to be familiar with methods of Lean Healthcare. They will learn how to actively use them and consult with experts and consultants from fields of industrial and process engineering. The current economic situation of Czech hospitals is not as good as it could be. Many hospitals are underfunded and unable to re-invest their money into internal processes. This situation also affects the customer, the patient, who must decide on treatment in some way. The patient, or customer, may choose a private, academic or urban hospital. Patients perform in this situation at two levels. First of all, they are customers who do not have complete information about the service provided by hospital, and the second level is that they are customers who do not pay for this service directly. Providers such as health insurers finance hospital services or performances. The above facts are strong arguments at issue, whether hospitals establish fees or not. Fees were the big question in the Czech Republic and were completely abolished in 2014. The question is whether the move was correct and whether the fee for days in the hospital was meaningful. The aim of this paper is to show the arguments have on both sides of the introduction of fees in hospitals and what impact reintroduction could have, both positive and negative, on the functioning of hospitals processes, especially supporting processes.