In this article on the Ministry of Health’s decree, we provide information on the percentage allocations for individual types of healthcare; this decree takes effect on March 30, 2023. In 2023, the Ministry of Health will have a quarter more financial resources at its disposal compared to the previous year, which is nearly one million euros more. The annex to the Decree lists the individual types of healthcare, the designated percentage of expenditures, as well as the minimum total amount in euros allocated to each type of healthcare. A link to the annex can be found at the end of the article.
The Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic (hereinafter also referred to as “MoH SR”) issued the long-awaited MoH SR DECREE of March 28, 2023, which establishes the percentage allocated to individual types of healthcare and the minimum total amount from the total amount of healthcare expenditures in the budget for individual health insurance companies for 2023 (hereinafter also referred to as the “Decree”).
Many entities operating in the healthcare sector had been awaiting the Decree, particularly the Association of Hospitals of Slovakia (ANS) and the outpatient sector, among other reasons due to the need to amend contracts with health insurance companies.
In this so-called redistributive Decree, the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic, pursuant to Section 15(8) of Act No. 581/2004 Coll. on Health Insurance Companies, Supervision of Health Care, and on Amendments to Certain Acts, as amended, established:
a) the percentage of expenditures allocated to individual types of healthcare from the total amount of expenditures allocated to healthcare in the budget, and the minimum total amount in euros allocated to individual types of healthcare for individual health insurance companies for the year 2023—as specified in the Annex to the Decree
b) the percentage of expenditures under point a) represents the percentage share of expenditures on a type of healthcare relative to the health insurance company’s total healthcare expenditures allocated in the 2023 budget
The Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic also announced on its website that the Decree implies that the health sector will have €1.72 billion more in 2023, i.e., 27% more financial resources than were budgeted for 2022, and thus, healthcare spending is expected to increase by €950 million compared to 2022.
The Ministry of Health further states that the development of revenues and expenditures in healthcare was also influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022 (expenditures related to economic mobilization, special allowances for difficult working conditions in so-called COVID wards, the purchase of vaccines, procurement of antigen tests, and the purchase of medicines, as well as a renewed increase in healthcare utilization following the pandemic).
According to the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic, the following factors were added to the baseline—the expected reality for 2022:
- expenditure growth without policy changes, which accounts for wage growth based on automatic wage indexation, inflation, and growth in drug consumption
- the impact of population aging
- additional expenditures, such as the government-approved increase in wages for healthcare workers in institutional healthcare beyond the scope of wage indexation,
- support for innovative treatments
- support for long-term care.
The following areas of healthcare, in which it would be possible to achieve better value for money, were also quantified during budget preparation: cost-effectiveness of medicines, support for the entry of generic and biosimilar medicines into the Slovak market, reduction of unnecessary laboratory and imaging tests, and others.
The Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic states that total expenditures in the healthcare sector in 2023 should thus reach €8.1 billion.These expenditures consist primarily of public health insurance expenditures, expenditures under the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic’s budget chapter, and funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan. Total public health insurance expenditures are expected to reach €7 billion, of which €6.8 billion consists directly of healthcare expenditures.
This amount is distributed among the three health insurance companies according to their share of available resources, as stipulated by the Decree - Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa will have 63.87% of available resources at its disposal for healthcare, Dôvera 27.46%, and Union 8.67%.
The Decree was published in the Collection of Laws of the Slovak Republic on March 30, 2023, and is effective as of that date; you can read it at https://www.slov-lex.sk/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2023/100/20230330
You can read the annex to the Decree at https://www.slov-lex.sk/pravne-predpisy/prilohy/SK/ZZ/2023/100/20230330_5520400-2.pdf
