The right of Cypriot citizens to secure health services in other Member States of the European Union and to be reimbursed by the General Health System has been implemented since October 2 and the relevant procedures are promoted, on a case-by-case basis, jointly by the Health Insurance Organization and the Ministry of Health, which maintains its role as a national contact point.

Cross-border care, as this procedure is called at European level, has been implemented under a relevant Directive for several years. Until today, this program was managed by the Ministry of Health, but, now, from the beginning of October, the compensation of citizens/beneficiaries of the GHS who receive services in the EU began to be paid by the Health Insurance Organization.

As reported by the HIO to "F", those citizens who had received services in the context of cross-border care before October 2 will be compensated by the Ministry of Health and those who were served after this date are compensated by the Organization.

Based on the procedure agreed between the Ministry of Health and the HIO, citizens who choose to receive services in another EU member state, must contact, after their service abroad, the Ministry of Health where they will submit their request for compensation. The Ministry of Health, after carrying out its own procedures, turns to the HIO which, in turn, proceeds to its own evaluation and since the specific service is provided through the General Health System, it pays the amount it would pay, if the citizen received the specific service in Cyprus.

Simply put, if for a routine operation the GHS beneficiary chooses, instead of being served by one of the hospitals in Cyprus (within the GHS) to be served by another hospital in Greece, he can do so and upon his return to Cyprus he can submit a request to the Ministry of Health for compensation, presenting, of course, all the necessary evidence. It goes without saying that in cases where the cost of the specific service in a medical center abroad is greater than the amount that the HIO reimburses for the service in Cyprus, the citizen is asked to pay the difference out of his own pocket.

A necessary condition for the payment of the compensation is proof of the necessity of receiving the specific service. That is, the citizen must have the necessary certificates proving that he needed the specific health service and that is why he received it.

It is worth mentioning that citizens who wish to be served by medical centers in other EU member states have the right to request preliminary information about the estimated amount they will receive as compensation, retrospectively, from the HIO.

The procedure between the Ministry of Health and the Health Insurance Organization is done on a case-by-case basis. That is, each case is examined, evaluated, approved or rejected separately and a simple procedure of transferring funds from the HIO to the Ministry of Health on an annual basis is not followed.

As we are informed, several citizens make use of their specific European right and although their number is not large, the Ministry of Health operates to serve them.

The right to cross-border care in Cyprus is not related to the program for sending patients abroad, which has also been transferred from the Ministry of Health to the Health Insurance Organization since October 2.

This procedure does not increase the cost for the Health Insurance Organization, since the Organization pays the amount it would pay if the citizen received the service from the Health Service Providers of the GHS in Cyprus.

It is recalled that for the implementation of cross-border care through the General Health System, the Parliament voted last July on a relevant amendment to the legislation. The adoption of the amendment was followed by a consultation between the Ministry of Health and the HIO and after the procedure was determined, the program was implemented about a month ago.