International Comparison of Cost of Medical Interventions in European Union: A Model Study for Cataract Surgery

International comparison of prices and costs in healthcare using Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) was investigated. The main goal was to design a suitable methodology for calculation of PPP for health technology assessment and interventions based on current approaches. The PPP calculation proposed is based on costs from the provider’s perspective and uses specific costs of selected interventions. Cataract surgery was chosen for a practical application of the methodology and the data was obtained from private eye clinics in Czechia and Slovakia and from available research papers (10 other EU countries). The microeconomic approach to the PPP shows that using the methodological framework of PPP calculation based on the costs from the perspective of healthcare providers can generate a lower price level for medical technologies than other methodological frameworks currently used by multinational organisations.