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02-02-2022

Health insurance funds said how much they will spend on specific areas of health care

Iliustracija

The Compulsory Health Insurance Fund (CHIF) amounts to 2.79 billion euros this year. That is, its revenue is as much as 200 million euros higher than was provided for last year. By allocating more funds to various areas of healthcare, patients will be reimbursed for more services and their accessibility will improve. Reimbursement will also include more medicines and medical aids (MAs), orthopaedic techniques, more modern tests and more diseases.

This year, 1.9 billion euros has been allocated from the CHIF for health care services - even 16 percent more than in the last year’s budget. It is gratifying that funding has increased significantly for all service groups.

A total of more than 452 million euros will be spent on primary outpatient care and ambulance services this year. That's 47 million euros more than last year. Meanwhile, outpatient, nursing and inpatient health care services accounted for a total of 1.3 billion euros. Thus, the funding of these groups of health care services increases by almost 133.7 million euros compared to last year.

The additional funds are important for the financing of the basic prices of services that would be significantly increased this year, for the payment of incentive bonuses, good work results, and the payment of various bonuses, as well as for the growth of salaries of medical institution employees.

Importantly, in order to use the CHIF budget efficiently, priority has been given in recent years to developing outpatient services and improving their accessibility. The development of cost-effective services is crucial for healthcare institutions that make more rational use of human resources and infrastructure in providing these services. At the same time, this development is also important for patients, as it enables them to receive the necessary services faster and in a normal social environment.

The CHIF budget is used to pay for expensive outpatient examinations and procedures such as computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and other examinations, also haemodialysis, therapeutic blood gravity surgery and other procedures. It has been decided to allocate almost 91 million euros for this year, i.e. 10.5 million euros more than last year. Thanks to this growth, compensation is planned to include new, state-of-the-art testing, such as ProsignaTM genetic testing for breast cancer molecules, to determine the long-term prognosis of cancer recurrence and apply the appropriate treatment. Also a more accurate test for tuberculosis - Gamma interferon QuantiFeron-TB Gold blood test and others.

Over 530 million euros has been allocated to medicines and the lease of MAs and medical devices this year, this is more by 79 million euros as compared to last year. The major part of the additional funding will be used to cover the rising costs of medicines and MAs that have already been started to be reimbursed, but there will also be innovative reimbursable medicines. Additional funding will also help ease restrictions on the prescribing of some medicines.

The increase in funding will not only continue to compensate for the particularly expensive treatment of patients with very rare diseases, but will also include new diseases. In addition, it is planned to reimburse the cost of renting insulin pumps for patients of all ages from the second quarter of this year.

114 million euros has been allocated for medical rehabilitation and sanatorium treatment this year, this is more by EUR 16 million euros than it was provided for last year. The amount allocated to orthopaedic technical devices is also increasing in order to maintain the same level of compensation and to improve the provision of the necessary equipment for the disabled. It will now exceed 17 million euros.

152 million euros was allocated to health programs and other health insurance expenditures. Funding innovations have also emerged in this area this year. For example, since this year, the cervical cancer early diagnosis program has been supplemented with new services that will lead to more accurate screening of patients. This will require about 3 million euros from the CHIF per year.

This distribution of the CHIF spending was approved last week by the Compulsory Health Insurance Board.

The NHIF invites you:

Your questions are welcome by email [email protected] or phone: local (8 5) 232 2222, international +370 5 232 222

Last updated: 28-03-2022

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