Health accounts permit to estimate indicators for public expenditure on health services, whether community-level public health interventions or specialized hospital care.  With this type of information, policy makers and researchers can evaluate if the system is "purchasing" the appropriate combination of services to achieve its sanitary and management objectives (allocative efficiency).  

On the other hand, out-of-pocket expenditure indicators calculated using health accounts estimates allow to evaluate if these resources might be channeled more efficiently via health insurance plans.

Health accounts, when estimated using international standards, classifications, and definitions, also permit making international comparisons of expenditure in health.  Through them, countries can learn from experiences and experiments of others, and can avoid repeating common mistakes.  For example, international comparisons allow to ask if the sector expenditure would increase or lower according to:

• The public-private composition of the sector
• Payment mechanisms: fee-for-service or salary
• The use of primary care physicians as gatekeepers of the system
• The number of doctors or nurses
• The proportion of ensured in the population
• The use of technology-intensive procedures
• The level of public production of health services
• The proportion of hospital-to-ambulatory health services