Public hospitals may charge private healthcare providers for inadequate care of patients

Péter Takács, State Secretary for Health at the Ministry of the Interior, said at the Portfolio Private Health Forum 2023 conference in September that the National Health Insurance Fund (NEAK) will bill private insurers for the cost of mismanagement, as it is not feasible for public hospitals to be a kind of safety net for the private sector.

Péter Takács said at the time that

it is easy to run a private healthcare business in Hungary today because all the risks are taken over and taken away by the state.

According to a recent draft law already available on the website of the Ministry of the Interior, private providers will in future receive a payment order from the Metropolitan Government Office

if the treatment of their patients or the resulting complication is completed in public institutions.

In response to Népszava's question about the amount of services and public spending that the public sector has to pay for the treatment of complications incurred by private providers, NEAK could not provide an exact figure.

Once the regulation comes into force - with the practical application of the legislation - there will be precise data on these cases,

they said.

They stressed that the aim of the draft, which is currently under public consultation, is that if a person is not treated in accordance with the professional rules in private care and therefore needs to be treated in public care, the private provider responsible should be obliged to reimburse the public health insurer for the costs of the latter. They stressed that this is important because the profits from private care accrue to the private provider, so it is legitimate to expect the provider to bear the risk of its activities, thus guaranteeing the quality of its work.

The cover photo is an illustration. Source: Getty Images