Prievidza Hospital Terminates Contract with Dovera Health Insurer

Bojnice, May 30 (TASR) - The Prievidza hospital, based in Bojnice, terminated its contract with the health insurance company Dovera on Friday, hospital director Peter Glatz announced on social media. Glatz justified the decision by pointing to insufficient payments, which he claims are disproportionate compared to other hospitals, and emphasized that for patients nothing changes for now - at least until the end of August. „This may seem radical or irresponsible to you. We see it quite the opposite. What would be irresponsible is to continue for another year being paid in a way that doesn’t cover costs of doctors, nurses — let alone equipment and medication. We have no problem being paid based on performance," stated Glatz. The director claims that the Bojnice hospital is one of the most efficient class II hospitals in Slovakia, a fact that, according to him, even the insurance company does not deny. „For the same unit of performance, we sometimes receive hundreds of euros less than others, which with our annual output amounts to millions that we have worked for. We just don’t get paid for them," he explained. Glatz emphasized that nothing changes for patients for now — at least until the end of August. „In the meantime, we can of course sign a new contract. But this time one that doesn’t place all the responsibility for service quality solely on the hospital. We share that responsibility. That’s precisely why we decided this year that we will negotiate our contracts with insurers independently. The termination is a signal that our relationships need a reset — even if it’s going to be a laborious process," he added. The Bojnice hospital already withdrew from the Slovak Hospitals Association (ANS) in mid-March and announced that it would begin negotiating its contracts with health insurers independently. The hospital management took this step after analyzing publicly available contracts between hospitals and the VsZP public insurer. According to them, private hospitals in ANS received higher payments than those managed by regional authorities, even though the latter are also ANS members. ANS rejected the criticism, stating that it never negotiated individual payment terms on behalf of its members. mf