Romania's MedLife to achieve targeted EUR 80 mln sales, affected by payment delays from Health Insurance House

Private healthcare provider MedLife will end 2014 with a EUR 80 million turnover, in line with its plan at the start of the year, and will reach 3,000 employees by year-end, the company announced. MedLife estimates it will generate 1,000 extra jobs, as some of the services are externalized. The focus on individual clients has paid off, MedLife president Mihai Marcu recently said. The company chose this strategy in response to the lack of predictability for the medical system in Romania. MedLife serves 5,000 paying clients a day across Romania, and takes a load off the state medical system, according to the company. “We believe the Health Ministry and the National Health Insurance House should perceive large medical operators as large employer of qualified medical staff, and large contributors to the state budget, as well as partner with whom to build an aggregated and performing health system,” said Mihai Marcu. The operator complains about the delays in funding via the National Health Insurance House, which results in tax payers not being able to benefit from health services they paid for at the healthcare unit of their choice. These people would like to partially benefit from the amounts they paid to the state in health insurance, Marcu further explained. He says the private healthcare services market is also due for changes, mainly in the operators' ranking, with Medicover back to second position after Regina Maria stagnated, and Sanador coming up from behind. MedLife plans to open two new large clinics in Cluj and Constanta this year, and at least four clinics in Pitești, Craiova, Târgu-Mureș or Ploiești and Oradea. MedLife was opened in 1996 and has become, according to its data, the largest private healthcare operator on the Romanian market. It runs hospitals, clinics, maternity hospitals, labs and pharmacies. MedLife is owned by the Marcu family, the IFC and Societe Generale Assets Management. Corina Chirileasa, corina@romania-insider.com