Introduction to national health accounts and this guide -- Getting organized: gathering the resources to prepare national health accounts, and sketching the health system -- Defining and categorizing health expenditure -- Classifying entities in the health care system -- National health accounts tables -- Data and the national health accounts -- A guide to non-survey sources of data for national health accounts -- Developing and using surveys in health accounts -- Organizing the estimation process: developing a route map and establishing a list of financing agents -- Making a first approximation of financing agent funds -- Estimating the financing sources by financing agents table -- Estimating the financing agents by providers table -- Developing the tables for financing agents by functions and providers by functions -- Distributing health expenditure among the population -- Concluding thoughts -- Resources available for health accountants -- Definitions of categories in the International Classifications for Health Accounts and in other useful classification schemes -- National accounts, input/output tables, and satellite accounts -- Data techniques often used in health accounting