Publicly funded health care

Accountability and transparency are severely lacking in the National Health System.

A study of 90 hospitals and their accounting statements from 2012-20 by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) has found rudimentary reporting that focuses on what state subsidies are spent on and makes no mention of how supplies are used and the state and age of the inventory.

Two medical diagnostic clinics in the northern port city of Thessaloniki charged insured clients unauthorized extra fees for tests prescribed by their doctors, an investigation revealed on Thursday.

As part of the effort to reduce patients' waiting time for operations in Greece, the National Health Service (ESY) will on February 1 introduce a digital filing system for hospitals' scheduled surgeries and their order of priority.

The pandemic appears to have produced a demand for more expensive stays in public hospitals.

Greece's healthcare system needs attention. From personnel shortages to restructuring primary care services to upgrading public hospitals, the next Greek government will have to address the lingering problems facing the national health service.

Slovenian Health Minister Danijel Bešič Loredan has presented the outlines of healthcare reform, announcing that Finland and Estonia will serve as models to create an effective, digitised and sustainable health system. Top-up health insurance is to be abolished in 2025.

Ljubljana – For the past two months the Health Ministry has been analysing health care services in 2020 and 2021. Long waiting times have been confirmed as the bane of Slovenia’s healthcare with Minister Danijel Bešič Loredan warning about many errors in the IT system. They now aim to obtain up-to-date data in a month.

Ljubljana – The government adopted on Friday an emergency bill estimated at over EUR 200 million that is designed to reduce waiting times for health services. The core provision is the removal of the cap on the number of services that the public health insurer pays in a given year.

Ljubljana – Medical organisations expect the new government formed after Sunday’s election to deal with issues in public healthcare system as a priority with one of their demands being proper pay for doctors.

Ljubljana – Tatjana Mlakar, the director general of the ZZZS public health insurer, has noted in an interview with the STA that the new obligations imposed on the ZZZS do not have long-term financial coverage, and is worried that this will result in a reduction of rights of insured persons.