In addition, an additional EUR 60 million from the CHIF budget reserve has been allocated to reimburse services provided in emergency departments of hospital-based medical institutions in 2023.
Changes in service fees
Last year, new base prices were calculated or recalculated for many healthcare services. Consultation fees for adult and paediatric cardiologists, neurologists, endocrinologists, rheumatologists, gastroenterologists, as well as obstetricians, gynaecologists, dermatovenereologists, orthopaedic traumatologists, and specialists in eye, ear, nose and throat diseases were increased.
Last year, payment for extended consultations was also increased to encourage patients to undergo more investigative and therapeutic interventions during their first consultation. Many of these consultations have been subject to multiple fee increases, resulting in a 30-50% increase in the payment for extended consultations and allowing health facilities to examine more patients and see more patients in a single consultation.
From November, the basic prices of healthcare services were re-indexed, allowing health institutions to use the extra funds to increase employee wages as early as January 2024. The total amount of the CHIF budget and its reserve allocated for this purpose last year was EUR 28 million.
More new medicines and medical aids for the population
Last year, 15 generic medicines were reimbursed and the number of reimbursed medical devices was increased. The most important innovation of the year is that, in order to reduce the cost of purchasing reimbursed medicines for the population, from 1 July 2023, patient premiums will be covered by accumulating a basket of premiums amounting to almost EUR 50 for the cheapest medicines purchased. In this way, 64.8 thousand people have already had their patient premiums covered in the second half of 2023.
Since the beginning of last year, two innovative medical aids have been centrally reimbursed to paediatric and adult neurosurgery hospitals: the vagus nerve stimulation therapy system for the treatment of depression and the spinal cord stimulation system for the treatment of patients with neuropathic pain after spinal surgery.
Reimbursement for treatment of patients with generalised lipodystrophy, Fabry disease and severe epilepsy also started in 2023. In addition, the number of letters of guarantee issued by the NHIF for the treatment of patients with very rare diseases increased significantly from 532 to 616.
In the areas of rental of medical devices and orthopaedics, the base prices of many devices have been recalculated for 2023, and reimbursement of electronic voice aids, as well as sophisticated and simple spectacle lenses have been introduced as medical devices.
In 2023, the set of CHIF accounts was approved by Seimas.
The 2023 CHIF budget implementation reports can be found here.
(Freepik photo)
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