Features of the pricing policy in the dental market of Ukraine

Abstract

Dental care is one of the most popular and market-oriented type of care provided to the population. It is developing rapidly, offering advanced medical technologies on the market. But some issues such as market competition in the health services sector, social partnership in dental services delivery to the population are not fully considered. There are some difficulties in analyzing dental market in Ukraine due to the presence of some problems: lack of official information about amount of dental services; incomplete coverage of information about production of dental services by statistics; a large part of the market for dental services are individuals – entrepreneurs, who are not obliged to publicly information about their commercial results (much of the producers in dentistry (at least 50 %) is in the shadow sector). The aim of the article is to investigate the current state of price aspects of the market of dental services in Ukraine. The article identifies the main problems in the market of dental services in Ukraine, the characteristics of medical services and factors that affect the formation of prices for these services, and also the aspects that consumers are guided with in choosing a medical institution in today’s competitive environment. In paper we analyzed price and non-price factors of demand for dental services, compared prices for dental services in private and public institutions, calculated their average value. Using standard deviation, we calculated how significant are the differences in prices for dental services within the industry. The cost of dental treatment in Ukraine depends on many factors: the orientation of the clinic, its form of ownership, popularity and competence of specialists. After performing the analysis, we saw that the prices for the same service differ significantly and vary depending on the company. Therefore, the dental market is characterized by the emergence of a large number of private dental institutions, where prices range significantly. In these conditions, the issues of modern management and marketing in dentistry have become especially relevant. To ensure the effective functioning of all subjects of the dental market, it is necessary to form their information field, within which they would exchange information about their activities, provide effective communication and work to create and maintain a positive reputation. Therefore, taking into account the current difficult epidemiological, economic and social situation in Ukraine, it is obvious that the health care sector needs constant improvement.