THE MAJORITY of Slovaks welcomes the planned cancellation of the nominal Sk20 fees for visiting the doctor as of September this year, a poll has found.
The poll, carried out by RCA Research, showed that 61.8 percent of respondents approved of the step. Another 7.4 percent supported the decision but were unsure how doctors would be compensated for the loss of the money.
According to the Pravda daily, however, many doctors will actually profit from the cancellation of the fees.
The country’s health insurers have decided that they will make up for the money that general practitioners received from the fees by a flat Sk6 monthly payment for every patient registered with each doctor, regardless of whether each patient visited their doctor in the given month.
It is therefore likely that some doctors will receive more money than they did in the past from the fees, which were only paid by patients that actually visited their doctors.