Health care access and quality in Costa Rica

This chapter assesses the accessibility of health care in Costa Rica, as well as its quality. A key issue concerns long waiting times, which have been a persistent and challenging problem. While these are now improving, financial accessibility may be worsening, with evidence of an upward trend in out-of-pocket spending. A preoccupation with waiting times also means that other dimensions of quality, particularly patient outcomes, have not received sufficient attention in recent years. Some key quality indicators, such as those relating to patient experience and patient safety, are not regularly collected, which means that continuous quality monitoring and improvement will struggle to become an embedded feature of the Costa Rican health care system.