Filenews 6 July2022 - by Marilena Panayi
On the basis of their own individualized needs, they will receive through the General Health System the physiotherapy treatments that patients with neurological diseases need. The patient registry has already been completed by the doctors and within the week it is expected that patients will receive information via their e-mail.
As the senior officer of the Health Insurance Organization Monica Kyriacou told "F", "the registry of patients with neurological diseases, which aimed to register all beneficiaries with neurological diseases in need of physiotherapy services, has been completed on June 30 according to the schedule that had been set, and now the Organization is promoting all the necessary procedures for the implementation of the new system".
In the first phase, the HIO, "has sent to the doctors a list of the patients for whom they themselves submitted a request for inclusion in the registry along with the treatments they may receive for 2022, based on the instructions already announced by the Agency in April".
Unfortunately, Ms. Kyriacou said, the procedure for some patients has not been completed since the data provided to the HIO was incomplete and therefore, "the doctors have already been informed so as to provide the necessary information for inclusion of these patients in the registry".
At the same time, "and within the week, the HIO will inform patients about their whereabouts in relation to the number of physiotherapies they are entitled to. That is, if from the evaluation of their data through the registrations of their doctor in the registry, the System grants them 20 physiotherapy treatments and they themselves have already received for 2022 15, they will be informed accordingly, so that in case their doctor deems it necessary that they need more physiotherapy to submit his request for a concession in a timely manner, if approved, a larger number. In this way and from the moment the request is given the right to be submitted before the completion of the specified number of physiotherapies for the person, we hope that there will be no gap or interruption in the treatment of our beneficiaries", explained the senior officer of the HIO.
The processing of the data so far, according to Ms. Kyriacou, "does not seem to result in cases of non-approval of patients for physiotherapy". However, he added, "there are some cases in which patients have been included in the registry and their doctor will provide them with a number of physiotherapies on the basis of a request for exceptional treatments." That is, "if a patient needs physiotherapy, after this is determined by his doctor, then a request will be made for the granting of a number of treatments."
All patients, Ms. Kyriacou concluded, "will be informed through their e-mail and because we know that there are beneficiaries who do not have access to e-mail or the internet in general, the Organization intends to proceed with other procedures for other ways of informing about these people".
As far as children with cerebral palsy are concerned, "they continue on the basis of the numbers set in April by age group, but with the processing of the data, a reassessment will be done to achieve individualization here as well and the children get what they really need".
Treatments according to needs
The registry, based on what the doctors completed, currently includes 1,312 patients (adults and children) with neurological diseases. "The purpose of its preparation was to inform the System on the basis of qualitative criteria for the condition of each patient individually and to allocate the number of treatments on the basis of the severity of the problem faced by each patient and not only on the basis of the diagnosis." because some may have needed more and some fewer treatments a year. With the implementation of the registry, the patient will be treated individually and according to his own needs."
Pending information on home physiotherapy
The completion of the register of patients with neurological diseases "which we welcome and now expect to be informed about the way in which physiotherapy was distributed, is one of the issues that have been discussed between the organized patients and the HIO last April", OSAK secretary Pambos Papadopoulos told "F". "An important pending issue", he stressed, "for dozens of patients is the issue of home physiotherapy in the context of the GHS and this is something for which we expect an update from the HIO soon. For some patients, home service is a necessity because they themselves cannot move easily, so this is something that OSAK will claim very strongly in case it is not promoted immediately and without delays by the Organization ".
