en Health Management and Economics Health Management and Economics Original Research Original Research <p class="Normal1" style="font-style:normal;"><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong><strong>&nbsp; Background: </strong>Accurate economic forecast has important effects on governmental policy and economic planning, and it can help policymakers to make decisions for future and create new infrastructures for the development of new forecasting methods. This study calculated total health expenditure, public health expenditure and out of pocket (OOP) payment for 2016-2020.<br> &nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>Methods:</strong> Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average Process (ARIMA) is one of the most important forecasting models. In this study, five-year values were forecasted using EViews8 software according to health expenditures in Iran from 1971 to 2015.<br> &nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>Results:</strong> Applying annual data for total health expenditure, resulted in the ARIMA (1,1,1) model being the most appropriate to predict these costs. The results of this study indicate that total health expenditures will reach from about 1228338 billion IRR in 2016 to 2698346 billion IRR in 2020 and the amount of out of pocket (OOP) will become more than 41% of total health expenditure in 2020.<br> &nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>Conclusion:</strong> Total health expenditures in 2020 will become more than two halves in 2016. These expenditures indicated there is a need for continued governmental support of this sector during the upcoming years.<br> &nbsp;<br> &nbsp;</p> <p class="Normal1" style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify; line-height:115%"><span class="notranslate"></span></p> ARIMA model, Health expenditures, OOP, Forecast 143 146 http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-4166-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Maryam Ramezanian maryamramezanian86@yahoo.com 200319475328460062806 200319475328460062806 No Research Center for Health Services Management, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran Ali Akbar Haghdoost ahaghdoost@kmu.ac.ir 200319475328460062807 200319475328460062807 No Modeling in Health Research Center, Institute for Future Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran Mohammad Hossein Mehrolhassani mhmhealth@gmail.com 200319475328460062808 200319475328460062808 No Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran Masoud Abolhallaje mohme2003@gmail.com 200319475328460062809 200319475328460062809 No Ministry of Health & Medical Education, Tehran, Iran Reza Dehnavieh rdehnavi@gmail.com 200319475328460062810 200319475328460062810 No Health Services Management Research Center, Institute for Future Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran Behzad Najafi bnadjafi59@gmail.com 200319475328460062811 200319475328460062811 No Tabriz Health Services Management Research Center, Health Management and Safety Promotion Research Institute, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran Ali Akbar Fazaeli afazaeli83@gmail.com 200319475328460062812 200319475328460062812 Yes Department of Health management and economic, School of Public Health and Research Center for Health Sciences, Hamadan university of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran