The Impact of COVID-19 on the Romanian Hospitals’ Expenses. A Case Study Toward the Financial Resilience after the Pandemic

Abstract

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) affect­ed almost all activities worldwide. The medical sec­tor was one of those which were most significantly impacted because the medical infrastructure was not sized for such a high scale shock, specialized human resources and medical infrastructure prov­ing to be much undersized and with slow growth potential. Many changes were required, important financial resources being mobilized in order to mo­tivate medical staff, offer treatments for the most severely affected patients, but also to create new fa­cilities where the increasing number of sick persons could be cured.

In our research we want to offer a hospital cost perspective based on empirical analysis of the COVID-19 impact on different categories of expens­es made by Romanian hospitals that treated patients with COVID-19 in different stages of their disease. The period analyzed was January 2019 to December 2020 on a monthly basis. Our results showed that expenses with goods and services, drugs, reagents and human resources are influenced by COVID-19 in a significant manner.