Dr. habil. Csaba Dózsa

Csaba Dózsa (b. 1969) is a health economist and the founder of Med-Econ, an independent health-economics research and consulting firm. For three decades he has worked at the meeting point of financing, regulation and advisory work in Hungarian healthcare, approaching the sector not from a clinical or manufacturer's perspective but from an economic, analytical one. The backbone of his work is healthcare financing, health technology assessment (HTA) and strategic advisory; he also publishes regularly in these fields and teaches at several universities.

In his free time he is a passionate cyclist and canoeist, and enjoys winter sports and hiking.

Early years and education

He earned his degree in economics and social policy at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences (today Corvinus University of Budapest) in 1994. During his university years he was a member of the István Széchenyi College for Advanced Studies.

His career took an international turn early on: between 1997 and 1999 he completed a master's degree (MSc) in health economics and healthcare management at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He also took part in numerous study trips and fellowship programmes, including in the United States and the Netherlands.

He obtained his doctorate at the Doctoral School of Business Administration of Corvinus University of Budapest (PhD, 2011); his dissertation examined the strategic responses of Hungarian hospitals in the shifting environment of the early 2000s. He completed his habilitation in health sciences at the University of Pécs in 2022.

Career – Hungarian healthcare from three sides

Few professionals have had the chance to see the system from the inside from all three sides. Csaba has experienced each of them.

As a regulator. Between 1994 and 2005 he spent eleven years at the National Health Insurance Fund (OEP, today NEAK), rising from analyst through head of department to Deputy Director-General responsible for healthcare provision. He was responsible for planning and delivering the curative and preventive budget of the Health Insurance Fund. In 1996 he led the professional work of hospital consolidation, and between 2001 and 2004 he directed the capacity-tender (capacity-admission) system. His work contributed to developing the financing system, improving the transparency of drug price subsidies and modernising the provision of medical aids.

As a policymaker. In 2005–2006 he served as Deputy State Secretary for economic affairs and sectoral development at the Ministry of Health. He led the development of the healthcare programme of the New Hungary Development Plan (later the New Széchenyi Plan), coordinated long-term system-reform strategies, and contributed to the legislative and macro-level development of health-insurance financing.

As a market expert. In 2006 he founded Med-Econ, where he is still the lead health economist today. Under his leadership the firm works on hospital performance analyses, HTA assessments, pricing, subsidy and market-access strategies, the development of EU-funded healthcare programmes, and primary-care (practice-community) projects. Its recent references include the performance and benchmark analyses of Hévíz State Hospital, Ráckeve Outpatient Clinic and Fót Health Centre.

He also plays a defining role in professional public life. In 2003 he co-founded the Hungarian Health Economics Association (META), which he chaired for three terms and where he is currently a board member and the organiser of META's annual conferences; in 2016–2017 he chaired the Hungarian chapter of ISPOR.

Academic and teaching work

Csaba has been an associate professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Miskolc since 2010 (habilitated associate professor since 2022), and a visiting lecturer at Széchenyi István University in Győr since 2024. He has previously taught at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) and Corvinus University of Budapest. His courses cover the structure of the healthcare system, social-insurance systems, healthcare and insurance financing, healthcare controlling, entrepreneurship and project management. He is an active researcher in health economics, hospital strategy and primary-care development.

According to the Hungarian Scientific Bibliography (MTMT), his body of work comprises 248 publications and 558 citations (324 of them independent), making him a continually cited voice in Hungarian and international health economics. He is a native Hungarian speaker and works at a professional negotiating level in English and Spanish.

Personal mission

"Thirty years in the system taught me that too many decisions are made on gut feeling or political slogans – and too few on evidence and numbers."

Csaba believes that the analysis needed for sound decisions is rarely made public. That is why he makes his own public: with clear, data-driven analyses he supports those who make strategic, financial and operational decisions in Hungarian healthcare every day: hospital leaders, decision-makers at medical-technology and pharmaceutical companies, and those who shape health policy. The goal is always the same: that decisions rest on the numbers and the logic of the system, not on guesswork.

Selected publications

(A representative selection; the full, current list is available in MTMT.)

• Capacity Building for HTA Implementation in Middle-Income Countries: The Case of Hungary (2013)
• The Hungarian Care Managing Organization Pilot Program (2015)
• Development of health economics in Hungary between 1990–2006 (2006)
• Methodological guidelines for conducting economic evaluation of healthcare interventions in Hungary (2002)
• Pricing and reimbursement of drugs and medical devices in Hungary (2002)