Slovenia’s Public Health Fund Produced €32m Surplus in 2018

By , 24 Jan 2019, 16:22 PM Politics
Slovenia’s Public Health Fund Produced €32m Surplus in 2018 kclj.si

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STA, 23 January 2019 - The public healthcare fund, the ZZZS (Zavod za zdravstveno zavarovanje Slovenije), ended 2018 above plans, generating a surplus of EUR 32m on EUR 2.89bn in revenue, which was EUR 207m higher than the year before, mostly on the back of favourable trends in mandatory healthcare insurance revenue, show the ZZZS's preliminary data.

Revenue from mandatory health insurance at EUR 2.76bn accounted for 95.5% of total revenue and was EUR 3.7m above plans.

Meanwhile, expenditure, which topped EUR 2.86bn, increased by EUR 176m or 6.6% over 2017, the fund's finance and accounting director Daniela Dimić told the press on Wednesday.

The revenue was EUR 8.5m above plans, whereas expenditure was EUR 23.5m below plans.

The highest increase in spending was recorded in expenditure for treatments abroad, which rose by 18.2% to EUR 56.4m and was 6.5% above plans.

The surplus will be used for financing the ZZZS, while the fund used the favourable trends to increase the prices of healthcare services, which means the fund paid more to public healthcare providers, by 5% last year.

Nevertheless, most of the extra money last year was spent on expanding services, especially on measures to deal with problems in areas such as primary healthcare, said Marjan Sušelj, the head of the healthcare purse manager.

"We earmarked funds for 54 new GPs and paediatricians, but sadly we failed to get enough. In December, we were 19 short," he said.

Overall, the situation with waiting times has started to improve after two years of efforts. "Compared to April, we have 11% fewer patients, 17,341, in queues. The most daunting, unacceptably long wait times have shortened by 5.6% in the same period," Sušelj added.

Figures indicate that money is no longer the main obstacle in shortening wait times, instead it is the lack of capacities, especially at the primary level, he said.

Sušelj called for legislative changes in healthcare insurance, preferably by the end of this year or in the first half of 2020 at the latest, as "the system of programme planning, approving and agreeing is long and arduous".

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