Western Clinics Avoid Accepting Bulgarians

Western clinics refuse to accept Bulgarians because of the problems with the payment of the funds for treatment by the Bulgarian fund, confirms representatives of the Supervisory Board of the National Health Insurance Fund and the Fund for Treatment of Children in the program "Before All" on "Horizon" radio.

"What we worry about is that we receive information from patients that there is no direct refusal to treat - meaning a Bulgarian citizen who needs to be treated whether urgently or planned abroad is not a receiving a direct refusal, but for example the hospital says: In fact, you are not supposed to come to us "and refer them to another place, and there are cases in which the patient has been re-routed from three medical establishments in Germany," said lawyer Andrei Damyanov, who is a member of the treasury supervision.

The Fund receives silent refusal of hospitals abroad to treat children from Bulgaria, said Penka Georgieva from its public council. In their words, hospitals abroad prefer not to work with the Bulgarian Health Insurance Fund.

"In the last months, we have no direct refusal, but we have the so-called "silent refusal." At a meeting of the Public Council we are presented with the documentation of children because the one-month term in which it must be presented and examined is ending, but there is a lack of offer within a month, the administration can not provide an offer from the hospital that is recommended by our doctors for some reason - the hospital itself is not responding or there is some correspondence that does not clarify the situation and that is extremely bad and we are concerned. Parents start talking about mild decline of treatment, that if the first hospital to which their child was sent and considered to be best for the child refuses by being silent so that it can be directed at any other one that it could wait for the so-called rescheduling offered by our institutions, "Georgieva explained.

Today, the Parliamentary Health Commission will hear NHIF Governor Prof. Kamen Plochev on debts to foreign clinics.

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