Cyprus Mail 28 December 2019 - article by Evie Andreou
The head of the private hospital’s association Pasin on Friday were discussing a proposal offered to them by Gesy overseer Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) to join the national health scheme.
HIO officials joined the discussions later in the day to answer questions from the committee.
Pasin chairman, Savvas Kadis, said on Friday he found positive aspects in the proposal but that they needed to ensure that if things changed down the line, private hospitals would not be left hanging out to dry.
Kadis told state broadcaster CyBC radio that the proposal, handed over to them by HIO about a week ago, includes very complex calculations and that each private hospital was assessing the pros and cons of the data presented to them.
“We hope within the next few weeks to take the final decision,” Kadis said.
He added that the meeting was expected to shed light on the decision of the majority of the private hospitals.
“No one has the right to force anyone to join Gesy or not,” he said.
He added that Pasin, however, would try to achieve an agreement to ensure that private hospitals that join Gesy operate in a risk-free safe environment.
“Conditions may change in a year, private hospitals should not be made to pay for this,” Kadis said, adding that the state ought to safeguard the agreement, possibly through legal adjustments.
HIO has been trying to get private hospitals on board before the implementation of the second phase of Gesy that concerns the introduction of inpatient care, set to kick in on June 1, 2020.
So far, Pasin had been declaring it was against the current health scheme citing concerns over the viability of private hospitals should they join under the terms they had been offered in the past but also failure to continue providing high-quality health services.
Last April, it had announced that 14 of its members that had decided not to join Gesy joined a private medicine network.
