Health Insurance Fund does not expect foreign patients to come flocking to Estonia

Photo: Mihkel Maripuu / Postimees

The Estonian Health Insurance Fund is not expecting a mass influx of patients from other European Union member states after the rules governing the organization of health care services change at the end of October.

«We do not expect the implementation of the EU directive on patients' rights to result in significant changes, at least not initially, but we'll be monitoring and analyzing the situation constantly,» board chairman of the Health Insurance Fund Tanel Ross told BNS on Tuesday.

According to Ross one of the objectives of the directive in the long term is to increase the accessibility of health care services and patients' freedom of choice across the EU. «General international experience meanwhile shows that patients' cross-border movement for getting care in another country, hence in a different legal, cultural and language environment, is the exception rather than the rule in even closely integrated regions, and a patient's subjective preparedness is considerably bigger than actual use of cross-border services,» he said.

The new rules will increase the opportunities both for the people insured with the Estonian Health Insurance Fund to get care in the EU and for patients from other EU countries to get treatment in Estonia. If the patient comes from a country where medical services are more expensive, the health insurance fund of the country where the patient comes from pays for the service in full. If the patient seeks treatment in a country where medical services are more expensive, the difference has to be paid by the patient. «It can be assumed, of course, that this opportunity will be used more by people who are anyway more prepared to move around in Europe,» Ross said.

«We do not foresee major changes in patients' movement and hence in the workload of the Estonian health care system as a whole for the time being,» Ross said. «The Estonian health care system is to a certain extent providing services to people insured in other EU countries as it is, both in Tallinn and, for example, to the Latvian insured in South Estonia.»

The manager of the North Estonian Medical Center (PERH), Tonis Allika, earlier said that the movement of patients could be influenced by the length of waiting periods for various services but that he does not believe foreign patients will be flocking to Estonia or Estonians going abroad.

«I personally do predict a certain increase in interest in patients coming to Estonia from Finland,» Allika told BNS on Friday. Finnish patients could opt for an Estonian hospital first and foremost to have a medical examination done sooner, as well as for some kinds of treatment.

The government last week approved a bill of amendments to the Health Care Services Organization Act that are scheduled to step into effect in October, by which rules would be established for facilitating access to cross-border health care services in Europe, promoting health care cooperation between member states and regulating patients' rights.

As a result of the change, people having health insurance in Estonia will have the right to be compensated for, to an established degree, for health care services rendered in another EU member state, for prescription medicines issued and prescribed as part of such treatment, and for medical devices sold on the basis of a medical device card. The patient must first pay for the entire treatment himself and then file an application for compensation with the Estonian Health Insurance Fund. If the services rendered cost more in the country where they were rendered than in the Estonian price list the difference must be paid by the patient.