Informal payments are a phenomenon frequently observed in middle and low income countries with relatively low shares of public funding for health care. They are a widespread source of financing health care services particularly in Central and Eastern European Countries, where 'under-the table' payments can be traced back to Communists regimes, due to scarcity of resources and long-waiting queues for technically free-of-charge services. Exact figures on informal out-of-pocket expenditures are difficult to obtain and many studies use projections and estimations as a proxy. In Hungary and Poland, informal payments play a role in out-patient physician care and hospital admissions.