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Tag: outpatient care
Outpatient doctors welcome that resources from € 50 million reserve in state budget will go also to them. According to the President of the Association of Private Doctors, Ladislav Pásztor, all healthcare providers, i.e. hospitals as well as outpatient clinics, should get € 5 million monthly, while € 5.3 million is needed. Private doctors associated in Zdravita and Slovak Medical Chamber already negotiated with General Health Insurance Company (Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa). Supposedly this was an initial negotiation on the new contracts, as the current contracts are valid until June 30th, 2012.
According to the Slovak Medical Union of Specialist not all nurses agree with the opinion of their Chamber, which promotes the Act on wage claims of nurses. President of the Union, Andrej Janco, considers the attitude of the head of Chamber of Nurses and Midwives, Mária Lévyová, directly threatens their jobs. Nurses are, however, allegedly afraid to talk about it publicly, as their professional competency is controlled by the chamber of nurses: if they lost the professional competency they would lose their job.
Healthcare specialists announced possible protests and strikes, if only salaries of hospital doctors and nurses will be increased. According to the president of Slovak Medical Union of Specialists, Andrej Janco, the raise of salaries of doctors and nurses is taking place at the expense of all others in the system. Union represents about 600 private clinics. President of the Union admits that the financial resources to cover wage increasing of all healthcare professionals are missing. But he also states that increasing of wages of doctors and nurses without increasing of salaries of other healthcare professionals will cause commotion.
Private outpatient doctors are asking for the same adjustment of minimum wages as it is in the case of doctors in hospitals. According to the president of the Association of Private Doctors, Ladislav Pázstor, they are asking for the basic salary in amount of € 1 600. He assumes that, in terms of their members, outpatient sector would need € 118 million per year, as together with higher salary of nurse the costs on the outpatient clinic would be € 2 900 monthly. Association has allegedly also prepared its own plan of protests.
Still more and more people in Slovakia are undergoing the surgery operations in the frame of one-day surgery. Compared to 2009, in 2010 it was made more often in most of the departments. Currently the one-day surgery is being provided in 1 183 places. Most accessible one-day surgery is in Košice region, where it is being carried out in 299 places. In Bratislava region there are 191 such places and 158 are in Trenčín region. The least possibilities of one-day surgery are in Trnava region.
Increasing of salaries of nurses in accordance with the new legislative can not, according to the Ministry of Health, threaten the operation of outpatient clinics. This opinion was expressed by MoH in the letter addressed to the dissatisfied private doctors, who worry about their existence. Statement of MoH resulted from the analysis of their costs and revenues, which was based on the data from National Health Information Centre.
Some outpatient doctors, after the increasing of the wage for their nurses, will not have enough resources for their own salaries. According to the information of web portal ZdraveZdravotníctvo.sk, if in accordance with the new Act on minimum wage of nurses and midwives the doctor increases the salary of the nurse, his/her own wage might be endangered. This may happen in case, if these increased demands will not be covered by the higher payments from health insurance companies.
Slovak Medical Chamber as well as the Association of Private Doctors warn against the collapse of outpatient care. Reportedly it may happen before this summer. The reason should be the increase of salaries of nurses. Minister of Health Ivan Uhliarik, however, claims that covering of increased salaries of nurses in outpatient care is ensured from the increased payments from the state budget and from the pharmaceutical policy.
Increased payments for outpatient doctors, announced by the Association of private physicians, is not a result of current negotiations. Outpatient doctors acquired the increasing of payments by fulfilling of the agreement concluded with Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa in July 2011. The state insurance company promised that doctors, who are the members of civic association Zdravita, will get the increased per-capita and the price of point in case that they will reduce the amount of prescribed pharmaceuticals by 5%. The project will run until July 2012 and its results are evaluated quarterly.
Under the threat of termination of contracts are outpatient clinics in non-state hospitals asking for more money. While Minister of Health is looking for resources for salaries of doctors, requests from other healthcare professionals are increasing. The head of the Association of hospitals in Slovakia Marián Petko says for Hospodárske noviny daily (09/01/2012) they want the same money as private doctors from the Association Zdravita will get. Biggest health insurance company, Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa, will increase the payments for private doctors by 7%. Outpatient clinics in non-state hospitals want more money also for the operation of emergency posts.
