The Board of Directors of Health Insurance Organization decided on Thursday to restart the effort for the promotion of the General Health System, raising expectations that after 21 years this grand change in healthcare will be implemented.
The Board met last night chaired by Vasos Shiarly, who is taking up his duties as Finance Minister today.
The Management of the Organization decided to adopt the proposal for the GHS, which is expected to cost €1 billion a year.
The timetable provides for the launch of the General Health System by 2015.
The background is against HIO since the efforts for the promotion of GHS date back to 1991 and the relevant law was approved in 2001. In 2010, the project froze due to the country’s fiscal condition and the high cost needed for its implementation.
With the proposal, two problems will be overcome.
First, the cost for the state (€455m) remain the same as the calculated cost of 2012 and the remaining (€520m) will be covered by the insured, the employers and the co-payments.
Depending on the scenario to be applied, the contribution for medical coverage will fluctuate between 2.45% - 5% for employees, pensioners, self-employed and employers.
Contributions will depend on co-payments as well, the money paid by the patient for each service. The higher the co-payments are (e.g. €5 for a visit to doctor or €15 for a doctor’s visit at home), the lower the contribution will be.
Second, the state hospitals will be protected from the competition for some years, until they rationalize their way of operation.
The BoD of the Organization decided to promote all necessary actions for the fast implementation of the General Health System as this has been planned pursuant to the relevant law and with the contribution of OAY (Hsiao, McKinsey, Mercer), after deliberations with all parties involved, which, among others, secures the participation of the public and private sector and the free choice of provider by the beneficiary”, the announcement said.
Based on the decisions of the Organization, GHS will be funded through a combination of contributions from all categories of contributors and co-payments by the patients.
The final distribution of cost between contributions and co-payments will be determined after deliberations. The state’s contribution will be determined taking into account the fiscal conditions and the real annual public spending on health services to be include din GHS.
The decision will be forwarded to the Ministries of Finance and Health. They will be asked to introduce a committee (between the two and OAY) to promote deliberations in the next two months.
It is important that the funding of the IT System and other business procedures will be entirely undertaken by the contractor to be selected with the BOT method (Build-Operate-Transfer).
Finally, the reorganization of public hospitals will be facilitated through the provision of part of their budget for inpatient hospitalization in the context of the overall budget, for a transitional period based on the program to be agreed.
The Board met last night chaired by Vasos Shiarly, who is taking up his duties as Finance Minister today.
The Management of the Organization decided to adopt the proposal for the GHS, which is expected to cost €1 billion a year.
The timetable provides for the launch of the General Health System by 2015.
The background is against HIO since the efforts for the promotion of GHS date back to 1991 and the relevant law was approved in 2001. In 2010, the project froze due to the country’s fiscal condition and the high cost needed for its implementation.
With the proposal, two problems will be overcome.
First, the cost for the state (€455m) remain the same as the calculated cost of 2012 and the remaining (€520m) will be covered by the insured, the employers and the co-payments.
Depending on the scenario to be applied, the contribution for medical coverage will fluctuate between 2.45% - 5% for employees, pensioners, self-employed and employers.
Contributions will depend on co-payments as well, the money paid by the patient for each service. The higher the co-payments are (e.g. €5 for a visit to doctor or €15 for a doctor’s visit at home), the lower the contribution will be.
Second, the state hospitals will be protected from the competition for some years, until they rationalize their way of operation.
The BoD of the Organization decided to promote all necessary actions for the fast implementation of the General Health System as this has been planned pursuant to the relevant law and with the contribution of OAY (Hsiao, McKinsey, Mercer), after deliberations with all parties involved, which, among others, secures the participation of the public and private sector and the free choice of provider by the beneficiary”, the announcement said.
Based on the decisions of the Organization, GHS will be funded through a combination of contributions from all categories of contributors and co-payments by the patients.
The final distribution of cost between contributions and co-payments will be determined after deliberations. The state’s contribution will be determined taking into account the fiscal conditions and the real annual public spending on health services to be include din GHS.
The decision will be forwarded to the Ministries of Finance and Health. They will be asked to introduce a committee (between the two and OAY) to promote deliberations in the next two months.
It is important that the funding of the IT System and other business procedures will be entirely undertaken by the contractor to be selected with the BOT method (Build-Operate-Transfer).
Finally, the reorganization of public hospitals will be facilitated through the provision of part of their budget for inpatient hospitalization in the context of the overall budget, for a transitional period based on the program to be agreed.
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