Sasko: Health Ministry to Launch Pilot Phase of New List of Medical Procedures

Banska Bystrica, May 13 (TASR) - As of July 1, Slovakia's Health Ministry will launch the pilot phase of a new list of medical procedures for the first five specialisations, including neurology, internal medicine, geriatrics, pneumology and dermatovenereology, allocating €5 million to the project, stated Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) at a press conference in Banska Bystrica on Tuesday. "The aim is to assess the actual complexity of medical procedures, such as their duration, difficulty and who performs them," explained Sasko, adding that the new catalogue of procedures should, in the future, primarily lead to improved access to health care in the regions and reduced waiting times. The selection of outpatient providers that will be included in the pilot project will be the responsibility of health-insurance companies. The project will last six months, during which the Health Ministry aims to gain a realistic picture of individual procedures in the selected specialisations. This will be followed by a three-month analytical phase. The launch of the pilot project was announced by the health minister alongside Banska Bystrica region governor Ondrej Lunter. A year ago, Lunter drew attention to a critical shortage of pulmonologists in the region, which he attributed partly to economic reasons. He noted that the region runs one pulmonology clinic [treating diseases of the lungs and respiratory system] which, over two years, carried out around 4,000 procedures and treated 3,600 patients, but still generated a loss of €38,000. "One of the solutions that we proposed at the time was to update the procedure catalogue to reflect reality," said Lunter. He welcomed the launch of the pilot project for the new medical procedure catalogue, but he noted that the former leadership of the ministry announced it back in July last year, and it was subsequently postponed four times. "The time for taking things slowly has run out in our republic," added Lunter. The health minister agreed with this statement and identified the development strategy for human resources in health care over the next ten to fifteen years as a key priority. lin/df