RSS
Healthcare: Measures and principles to be promoted by MS for applying public health policies
The Ministry of Health (MS) on Wednesday, in the Government meeting, presented a note on financing private supplies from the National Sole Social Health Insurance Fund (FNUASS), but also information referring to new measures and principles it will promote for applying public health policies.
Starting in 2013, the Ministry of Health suggests reshaping the mechanisms meant to finance and distribute FNUASS on the basis of redefining the strategic priorities of public health both among the various stages of healthcare (primary, secondary and tertiary) and between the two kinds of suppliers, public and private, reads the above-mentioned document.
Thus, the Ministry of Health supports the increase in the sums of money allocated to primary healthcare (which is entirely ensured by private suppliers) and for the out-patient one (mostly ensured by private suppliers), which can make it possible to solve an important part of the cases that are nowadays treated in hospitals, at much lower costs, and consequently, with an increase in the efficient use of the pubic funds. The stimulation of the primary and out-patient healthcare activity, by introducing new additional financing mechanisms, will lead to a development of preventive interventions and to a diminution of unjustified stays in hospital.
In parallel they support a restoration of the balance of reimbursing the costs of hospital healthcare between the public and private suppliers, meaning that the private hospital system must only benefit by financing from public funds in the fields in which the public hospital healthcare is temporarily or permanently deficient or is not represented in the county or the region under consideration.
They also refer to a differentiated establishment of the price for every weighted case for which the reimbursement was made by the health insurance houses for hospital services, depending on the category in which every hospital is included, reads the document mentioned before.
Such an approach will make it possible to apply the Ministry of Health public policies meant to consolidate the regional network of emergency hospitals, a network which includes 53 hospitals nationwide and which is the strategic nucleus of the hospital system in Romania. These hospitals are the ones to ensure the solution to most critical and complex cases and must be priorities for the healthcare system from the point of view of financing medical services from public funds, from the point of view of investments and material equipment as well as from the point of view of ensuring human resources, informs the above-mentioned document.
In Romania 80 percent of the citizens live on low income, which does not allow them to resort to private medical services, and only 20 percent have the income that is necessary for accessing private medical services.