From today you should make sure you have some cash in your pocket if visiting a doctor or some hospital department, because a lack of agreement between the state health insurer VsZP and doctors means you will have to pay cash for certain procedures like x-rays and blood tests, for instance.
The news was announced at a press conference on Friday by representatives of the Slovak Medical Chamber (SLK), the Zdravita association and the Association of GPs for Children and Adolescents (AVLDD), who feel they have no choice given a lack of agreement between GPs and the health insurer. Instead, they plan to collect cash from patients, who will then have to apply to VsZP to have the costs reimbursed. A lot of hassle and formalities, for sure.
The VsZP insurer is trying to slim down the range of patients for which it will increase payments this year, something the doctors feel they cannot accept. Many of them are therefore refusing to sign the new contracts with the insurer, which could lead to complications for their patients. SME daily reports today how some doctors surgeries are strangely quiet today, as many patients who probably planned a visit to the doc have probably postponed it for a while.
Insurance conpanies are always trying to pay less for more, while they raise your premiums to make more money! Insurance companies are a huge scam! If I am not ill, I still pay them each month. If I do become ill, I have to go to multipe doctors, in multiple places to find out nothing about my illness. The insurance companies make it difficult to have any sort of structure ion the health care system as they don’t want to pay, so they only pay those doctors that have decided it is better to get a little than nothing. I know a pharmacy that must wait months before receiving the payment from the insurance group. This means the pharmacy has to have the cash or credit, to pay for all the medications and drugs to then basically give them away in hope they will get somthing down the road from the Insurance groups. I am sure this is the same with all the medical and healthcare operations.
The Procare systems I joined is much different, they have a different approach and I think more and more such facilities should be promoted and used. So what if I had to pay a little over one hundred to join for a year, the facilities were new, the offices modern and the treatmen there was supurb. Unlike going to any place I have visited in the local city hospitals and medical centers. It is grose, 40-50 years behind the times and nothing was done for how long to keep the places modern and changing! The hospital I was born at in the US has not changed much, but everything looks and feels brand new. Nothing in Slovakia has been maintained! The Russians left and nothing changed! Everything just gets neglected and destroyed!
Lets see if I have got this right – you pay your health insurance every month but now if you want treatment you have to pay the doctor/hospital and then get your money back from the insurers – you hope.
So at present your health insurance is worthless, if your ill you will be out of pocket twice and while you ill and worrying about your health you have to jump through hoops to get the money, you shouldn’t have had to pay in the first place, back?
What a joke this place is.
A suggestion . Why dont the hospitals charge VsZP at the old rates until and agreement is reached at the new rate and then backdate the charge changes to July 1st?
Oh sorry this is Slovakia that would `not be possible` and everything just has to be so hard, because it must . Forget customers, service etc …………