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Health Insurance Fund in Estonia agrees about distribution of EUR 34 mln in extra funds

BC, Tallinn, 18.12.2017.Print version
The supervisory board of the Estonian Health Insurance Fund on December 15th agreed in principle on the fund's budget for 2018 and determined the areas of spending of the 34 million euros given additionally to the fund to finance healthcare expenses, reports LETA/BNS.

The CEO of the Health Insurance Fund, Rain Laane, told reporters that the budget of the fund for next year is expected to be adopted at the next meeting of the supervisory board in January.

 

Minister of Health and Labor Jevgeni Ossinovski said that 140,000 more treatment cases than this year, including 7,000 more surgery cases, will be financed by the fund in 2018.

 

In cancer treatment, the Health Insurance Fund will start paying for new drugs in the treatment of kidney tumors, breast tumors and prostate tumors, and will increase the number of physician office visits by 5,400 in cancer treatment. Altogether 20 new medicines will appear on the list of medicines financed by the fund from the start of the new year, and the money earmarked for that purpose amounts to approximately 3 million euros.

 

The amount of money earmarked for pediatrics and child surgery will increase by 5.5 million euros, which translates into 6,500 more treatment cases.

 

Knee joint and hip joint replacement surgeries for up to 3,600 people, almost 600 more than this year, will be financed by the fund next year, and the waiting lines for such surgeries will become shorter by up to 10 months. The number of eye cataract surgeries will increase by as much as 5,000 from the present 13,000 surgeries per year.

 

The dental care reimbursement for adults will rise from the present 30 euros to 40 euros a year and a reimbursement of 85 euros will be made introduced for people suffering from specific diseases and conditions which make the availability of dental care a must, such as diabetes and the autoimmune condition Sjogren's syndrome.

 

For approximately 125,000 people expenditure on medicines will decrease substantially in 2018, as an additional subsidy will start to be paid towards the costs of medicinal products distributed at a discount if the cost for the person exceeds 100 euros. For instance, a working-age person with type 2 diabetes who this year may have had to pay as much as 467 euros for drugs will get the same drugs for 236 euros in 2018.






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