Filenews 4 February 2025 - by Marilena Panayi
A new phenomenon seems to be developing within the General Health System and has resulted in patients paying a few hundred euros out of pocket for services that the Health Insurance Organization fully reimburses in hospitals.
According to complaints that reached "F" and the Federation of Cyprus Patients' Associations, GHS hospitals are asking their patients, beneficiaries of the System, to pay out of their own pocket amounts of €300 – €500, because, as they are told, the hospital does not have free beds and they must be admitted to a single room which the HIO does not compensate. They even claim that the HIO only compensates double or larger rooms and not single rooms.
"This is not the case," Miltos Miltiadous, OSAC's representative on the HIO board of directors, told F.
The HIO, he explained, "fully compensates each incident and the claim that only double or larger rooms are compensated is not valid." That is, "if a patient has an infection and needs to be isolated, will the HIO not compensate the incident in full?" he asked.
What can happen, Mr. Miltiadous said, "is that the patient demands a single room and is provided by the hospital. In such a case, yes, the patient must pay himself or whatever private insurance the hospital has."
Under no circumstances, however, can a hospital "ask for money from the patient claiming that it does not have another free bed and in no case is the claim that the HIO only compensates double or larger rooms valid," he said.
Such phenomena, Mr. Miltiadous said, "unfortunately develop within the System and endanger citizens' trust in the GHS. It is unacceptable for GHS providers to come up with ways to take money from patients once a service is fully reimbursed by the HIO."
As OSAC, "we stress that the HIO must exercise all necessary controls but we also call on citizens/patients to fill in the satisfaction questionnaire sent to them after their discharge, reporting such incidents. Of course, for such cases, the best route is to report directly to the HIO and the OSAC Patient Observatory so that an investigation can follow and penalties can be imposed, where and where appropriate."
"For this reason, as OSAC, we have stressed many times that patients should not be afraid to report attempts or actions of exploitation. In order for the System to function properly, the cooperation of all of us is needed. Otherwise, these phenomena, which constitute a violation of the law, among others, will continue to develop and become more and more intense," the OSAC spokesman concluded.
