Economy

VsZP to Terminate Contracts with 120 Doctor's Surgeries

Bratislava, January 30 (TASR) – The state-owned health insurer VsZP is about to terminate contracts with around 120 doctor’s surgeries and several treatment facilities, TASR learnt from VsZP director Miroslav Kocan on Monday.

The measures are part of the insurer’s shake-up programme in response to its estimated loss of €200-210 million in 2016. The first notices of termination were sent out last week.

Around 100 of the doctor’s offices will lose their contracts with the largest Slovak health insurer due to doctors’ concurrent work in hospitals and in private facilities.

“The doctors concerned will continue to provide health care, but in a different facility,” said Kocan. The remaining 20 contracts will be cut short due to inefficiency.

VsZP has contracts with around 8,500 doctor’s surgeries. They most often include doctors specialised in urology, gynaecology and internal medicine in Bratislava and Kosice regions, said the head of the insurer’s health care purchase department, Milan Horvath.

The sum total of the contracts to be terminated has been worth around €3 million per year. Horvath admitted the possibility that new contracts may be signed with doctors in areas where specialists are now in short supply.

Kocan said that patients from the doctor’s surgeries concerned are expected to transition to other surgeries and will face no limitations in health care provided. “We’ll pay for their health care elsewhere,” he said.

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