Various prices for the same medical services

Citizens have related their experiences for Radio Free Europe, saying that for similar services, a medical visit to a certain private community costs 10 euros, until another is forced to pay double.

Lena Morina from Pristina says she recently attended two doctors at private institutions for the same problem. The prices it has paid for the same medical service stand out greatly.

I've been to the oncologist for a medical visit since I had health problems. He may also name doctors and the price of the same service. To one oncologist, I paid 20 euros, already to another 40 euros. So, I paid the same service at these” prices, she says.

I don't understand what this is. I only know that I have had such experiences for my children's medical visits. Mostly with pediatric doctors, I paid 10 euros for a visit, but I have had the chance of up to 50 euros to pay for a child medical visit. Horrible, I think this case should be settled anyway, says Morina.

There is no specific legislation in Kosovo that forces the founders of private health services, so that someone can determine prices. All of this, according to medical professionals, is called a free market.

Meanwhile, according to officials at the Ministry of Health, the issue could be settled only with the introduction of the Law to health insurance.

The Ministry of Health, the Health Insurance Fund, respectively, as health insurance is functioning, then it is envisioned that through the price for the service list, it will make some sort of adjustment for the price of services. This, since prices to be contracted, will be preset in value, rather than offering funds for services. So those services that fund contracts in the name of patients, of course, will also have unification. So said Radio Free Europe, Faik Hoti, director of the Health Ministry Information Department, according to which prices for the time being are simply determined by competition, while the citizen has the right to take up service in a more real-priced country.

But on the basis of the legislation, private health institutions are obliged to place these prices in transparent places so that citizens who go to receive health services will first know how much it costs.

“Changes in health services prices in the private sector are because they do not submit to any specific legislation, such as services in public health institutions, which are regulated with an administrative guide for co-payers”.

“In the private sector, the founders of these institutions subject themselves to the principles of the free market economy, competition, respectively, and they define the prices of services that they offer”, Hoti said.

Even the chairman of the Federation of Health Union, Blerim Syla, announced that the prices of health services in private institutions can be unified only with the law's entry into force for health insurance. But he is skeptical that this law will soon be lived.

“Prices can only be unified when health insurance is implemented. It's free market for now, but it's good to be under control and place the Health Insurance Fund on who it's going to contract to and what the service will be paid”.

I think prices will be lowered anyway because controls of 50 and 100 euros will not pay the insurance fund. It is forecasting that in 2020, health insurance begins, but as far as I can see, it's not nearly”, Syla said.

Otherwise, the Law on Health Insurance was adopted in 2007, but it has never entered into force, since it was never signed by the head of the United Nations mission in Kosovo.

Later, this law was withdrawn due to budgetary implications, with World Bank recommendations and the International Monetary Fund.

The government had initially allocated 17m euros for implementation of this law. But the planned health insurance means were withdrawn because the Government had estimated that not all necessary preparations had been carried out.