Joint replacement

Joint replacement is a treatment service reimbursed by the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund (CHIF), which replaces damaged joint surfaces with artificial ones for insured patients. The National Health Insurance Fund under the Ministry of Health (NHIF) purchases knee, hip, shoulder, elbow, wrist and ankle endoprostheses and their accessories centrally and pays for it from the CHIF funds. They are distributed to hospitals, then NHIF keep records of joint replacement  surgeries, and pays a fixed amount of compensation to patients covered by compulsory health insurance who have purchased endoprostheses at their own expense.

Joint replacement with compensatory joints is performed in hospitals. A family doctor or a specialist doctor who suspects a patient having a disease requiring arthroplasty, after assessing the patient's general condition, refers him or her for consultation to a personal health care institution (PHCI) that provides arthroplasty services. The PHCI doctor orthopedic and traumatology surgeons or authorized employee who registers the application for compensatory joint endoprosthesis in the NHIF Queue and Inventory Management Information System and submits it to the NHIF through this information system.

NHIF registers the applications of the population covered by compulsory health insurance for free endoprostheses.

Consultations on issues related to joint endoprosthesis are provided through the general telephone number of the health insurance funds +370 5 232 2222 or territorial health insurance funds.

For more information, click here  (in Lithuanian).