Illustrative stock photo (source: SITA)
State-run health insurer Všeobecná Zdravotná Poisťovňa (VšZP), which is expecting a record loss this year, will need additional financing of €150 million.
The insurer submitted a revival plan to the Health Care Supervisory Office, via which the insurer plans to save more than €115 million through self-imposed austerity cuts, the TASR newswire reported.
VšZP’s loss at the end of 2016 may amount to €225-250 million. Following austerity measures to be introduced in, for instance, the sphere of medicine and special health material expenditures, the loss should drop to €180 million, said the insurer’s general director Miroslav Kočan.
“We’ll need additional financing for VšZP, however,” Kočan claimed, as quoted by TASR, adding that VšZP has already launched talks with the Health and Finance Ministries.
The bulk of the money is to be saved in the area of health-care procurement, with costs slated to be slashed by 3 percent year-on-year. A total of €39.5 million is to be saved through measures relating to medication, €24 million through streamlined quality control and €21 million via changes to procurement processes, for example.
“The main purpose of the revival plan is to slow down the rate of growth in health-care costs next year,” said Kočan, as quoted by TASR.
The additional financing for VšZP is closely linked to a boost in financing for the sector.
“Specific sums for additional funding for the sector in general and VšZP in particular will be the subject of talks between the Health Ministry and Finance Ministry," said Health Ministry’s spokesperson Stanislava Luptáková, as quoted by TASR.
VšZP, the largest health insurer on the market, has found itself in the red since August 2016, when it revised the process of drafting and registering its technical reserves. The insurer officially recorded a profit of €17.6 million in 2015, but the current management has said that it actually ended the year with a loss. Former VšZP director Miroslav Vaďura denies this, TASR reported.
