Family doctors to manage budget individually depending on number of patients

Chisinau, 30 July /MOLDPRES/- Family doctors will manage their budget individually and it will depend on the number of patients. This will happen after the reform of the primary care system, which means that family doctors will be able to open individual offices. Details about the new conditions in which family doctors will work were offered by Health, Labor and Social Protection Minister Svetlana Cebotari in an interview given exclusively for MOLDPRES.

Thus, the family doctor will conclude a contract with the National Health Insurance Company (CNAM). For each patient, he will receive from CNAM 450 lei per month. The number of patients included in the list of a doctor will be 1500-1800. The physician will manage his own budget, and if he registers savings, he will be able to redistribute it to develop the technical-material base of his office.

“If the doctor does not provide quality services, the citizen will want to go to the list of another doctor. Then the physician loses 450 lei, has no more 1500 patients, and the Ministry of Health will have to withdraw this practice, put it in a contest and give it to another doctor."

Svetlana Cebotari said that there are currently situations where some physicians in the villages are obliged to provide medical services to 3-4 thousand or even 8 thousand patients.

The minister expressed conviction that establishing the free practice of a family doctor will increase the quality of medical services. "80 percent of all health problems can be solved by the family doctor with over 30 percent of the costs, and only serious cases are directed at hospitals,” Cebotari said.

The law on the amendment and completion of some legislative acts, regulating the activity of the Primary Health Care, by setting "Free practice of the family doctor" was adopted by the Parliament on Friday.

(Reporter N. Sandu, editor L. Alcază)