Romania to audit its hospitals, decide on procedures for healthcare co-payment

Romania will professionally audit all its hospitals in order to understand their exact situation, as agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which finalized its last review in Romania yesterday (January 29 ). “At richer hospital units, we will do financial audits, which are more expensive, and at the other units, we will do internal public audits on hierarchical level, so that we understand what really happens in the hospital,” said Health Minister Eugen Nicolaescu. The Health Ministry will make decisions about the hospitals in its administration, while the local authorities will decide about the units they manage locally. Romania also recently agreed with its international lender the IMF to establish a level of co-payment of RON 10 – or some EUR 2.2, but it has not been established yet whether this payment for medical services will be applied each day or after the patient is discharged. The Health Ministry will create the procedure for co-payment by March this year. “I wanted to make sure that the value of the co-payment will not have anything to do with family doctors, will not cover anything outside hospital admission and that it will not exceed RON 10. Sure, for those without financial means, it matters, but basically this is not an amount impossible to cover,” said Prime Minister Victor Ponta. Romanians pay contributions to the Health Insurance House – a percentage of their monthly income – but will also have to pay the RON 10 from March 31, every time they are hospitalized in a state-owned unit. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Monza Hospital)