The government approved a draft law introducing the co-payment system for medical services, Health minister Cseke Attila declared. According to him, the system will be implemented in June or July 2011 after the debate in the Parliament of the draft law. The co-payment will be made through health tickets and the ceiling of the annual contribution is 600 lei. Above this sum, no co-payment will be made. The health ticket will function as a payment instrument and will contain data identifying the patient.
The system will not be implemented for emergency services, Attila said. According to him, about 378 million lei will be gathered, which will be targeted for medical services suppliers. The sum will be used to increase the quality of medical services.
There are some persons who are exempt from payment: those who are retired and get below 700 lei/month, children up to 18 years old and students up to 26 years old who have no revenues.
According to estimates, there will be 8.6 million persons exempt from payment.
