Health Care Systems and the Levels of Care Explained
Author: Disabled World (DW)
Updated/Revised Date: 2 Nov 2026
Table of Contents:
Synopsis - Definition - About This Section - FAQs - Publications - Subtopics
Synopsis
Understand what health care means, its primary, secondary, and tertiary levels, universal coverage models worldwide, and how the U.S. system compares to others.
At a Glance
- 1 - Quaternary care extends tertiary care into highly specialized medicine.
- 2 - Australia and New Zealand both run publicly funded universal health care systems.
- 3 - U.S. national health spending reached $5.3 trillion in 2024, or 18.0 percent of GDP.
- 4 - About 92 percent of people in the United States had health insurance for some or all of 2024.
Topic Definition
- Health Care
Health care is the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and management of illness and injury, along with the preservation of overall health, delivered through the work of medical, dental, nursing, and allied health professionals. It reaches people across several connected levels, beginning with primary care as the first point of contact, moving to secondary care from specialists such as cardiologists and dermatologists, and extending to tertiary and even quaternary care for advanced and highly specialized treatment. Many services also take place outside hospitals and clinics through home and community programs that address wider public health needs. When these services are organized together, they form a health care system, and countries approach this in different ways, from the universal, government funded models common across Europe, Australia, and Canada to the largely private system found in the United States.
Overview
Health care, or healthcare, is the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of health through services offered by the medical, dental, nursing, and allied health professions. The organized provision of such services may constitute a health care system. This can include specific governmental organizations such as, in the UK, the National Health Service or a cooperation across the National Health Service and Social Services as in Shared Care.
Health Care Definitions and Meanings
Health care:
(healthcare) is defined as the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in human beings. Health care is delivered by practitioners in allied health, dentistry, midwifery (obstetrics), medicine, nursing, optometry, pharmacy, psychology, and other health professions. It refers to the work done in providing primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, as well as in public health.
Primary care:
Refers to the work of health professionals who act as a first point of consultation for all patients within the health care system.
Secondary care:
The health care services provided by medical specialists and other health professionals who generally do not have first contact with patients, for example, cardiologists, urologists, and dermatologists.
Tertiary care:
Specialized consultative health care, usually for inpatients and on referral from a primary or secondary health professional, in a facility that has personnel and facilities for advanced medical investigation and treatment, such as a tertiary referral hospital.
Quaternary care:
The term quaternary care is sometimes used as an extension of tertiary care, regarding advanced levels of medicine which are highly specialized and not widely accessed.
Home and community care:
Many types of health care interventions are delivered outside of health facilities. They include many interventions of public health interest, such as food safety surveillance and distribution of needle-exchange programs for the prevention of transmissible diseases.
Universal Health Care
Universal health care means that everyone in a country can get the health services they need without suffering financial hardship. Countries reach this goal in different ways. Some, such as the United Kingdom, run a national health service paid for mainly through taxes. Others, such as Germany, France, and the Netherlands, use social health insurance, in which most of the population belongs to regulated health insurance funds that pay doctors and hospitals. Italy runs a national health service with modest charges for some services. Australia has Medicare, its universal public health insurance program, and Medicare in Canada is made up of provincial and territorial plans that follow the Canada Health Act of 1984. Universal health care contrasts with the mixed public and private system of the United States.
A health care provider or health professional is an organization or person who delivers health care in a systematic and professional way to anyone who needs it. A health care provider could be a government, a company in the health care industry or a health care equipment company, an institution such as a hospital or medical laboratory, or a professional such as a physician, dentist, nurse, therapist, psychologist, pharmacist, chiropractor, or optometrist.
Australia and New Zealand both have publicly funded universal health care systems, alongside private health care and insurance. Every country in the European Union, along with the United Kingdom, Norway, and Switzerland, has publicly funded or publicly regulated health care that covers most or all of its residents.
United States Health Care
In the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services is the federal department responsible for health. It is led by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a member of the Cabinet, and it runs Medicare and Medicaid through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Health care in the United States is provided by many private and public organizations, and it costs more per person than in other high-income countries. National health spending reached $5.3 trillion in 2024, or $15,474 per person, which was 18.0 percent of gross domestic product [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, n.d.].
Publicly funded programs help pay for the care of older adults, people with disabilities, children, veterans, and people with low incomes, and federal law requires hospital emergency departments to screen and stabilize anyone who comes in, regardless of ability to pay. In 2024, the United States Medicare System spent $1,118.0 billion and Medicaid spent $931.7 billion. The federal government paid for 31 percent of all health spending, households for 28 percent, private businesses for 18 percent, and state and local governments for 16 percent [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, n.d.].
In 2024, 92.0 percent of people in the United States, or 310 million, had health insurance for some or all of the year, which left about 8 percent without coverage for the whole year [U.S. Census Bureau, 2025].
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between health care and public health?
Health care focuses on treating individual patients, while public health works to protect and improve the health of whole populations through prevention and education.
What is single payer health care?
Single payer health care is a system in which one public body, usually the government, pays for most medical services on behalf of the entire population.
Does universal health care mean everything is free?
Universal health care aims to cover everyone, but many systems still charge nominal fees, taxes, or copayments to help fund the services provided.
What does allied health mean in health care?
Allied health refers to health professions outside medicine, dentistry, and nursing, such as physiotherapy, radiography, dietetics, and occupational therapy.
What is primary care compared with urgent care?
Primary care is ongoing routine care from a regular provider, while urgent care handles immediate but non life threatening problems that cannot wait for an appointment.
How is health care funded in most countries?
Health care is funded through a mix of general taxation, social health insurance contributions, private insurance premiums, and direct out of pocket payments by patients.
What is a health care provider network?
A provider network is the group of doctors, hospitals, and facilities that an insurance plan contracts with to deliver care at agreed rates to its members.
What is the difference between Medicare and Medicaid?
In the United States, Medicare is federal health insurance mainly for people aged 65 and older and some younger people with disabilities, while Medicaid is a joint federal and state program for people with low income. Some people qualify for both.
References
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (n.d.). NHE fact sheet. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
- Bunch, L. N., and Ketema, H. (2025). Health insurance coverage in the United States: 2024 (Report P60-288). U.S. Census Bureau.
Curated and edited by Ian C. Langtree, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Disabled World. This section is maintained by the Disabled World editorial team. Last updated: