Romanian Health Ministry To Hold Negotiations On Healthcare Frame Contract With Family Doctors - PM

The Government approved in its meeting Wednesday, the new frame contract on the provisions of medical assistance in 2010, which stipulates that a new methodology will be used to calculate medicine reference prices as of July.

Romanian Health Minister Cseke Attila on Wednesday said the current reference prices for compensated and free medicines will remain unchanged until July 1 when the new calculation methodology will be applied.

Romanian family doctor associations announced Thursday they will no longer prescribe compensated and free medicine as of April 1, because the new frame contract on healthcare has been approved without their input.

Rodica Tanasescu, president of the Bucharest-Ilfov County branch of the Family Doctor Association, told MEDIAFAX on Thursday that the healthcare frame contract for 2010 was approved "on the sly," without consulting family doctors, and its provisions "will reduce the budget for primary care by almost 40%."

Apart from refusing to issue prescriptions for compensated and free medicine, general practitioners will no longer write referral or sick leave notes for their patients.

The health minister said there is no justification for family doctors' actions and asked Lucian Duta, president of the National Health Insurance House, to bring them up to speed with the new contracts' provisions. According to Duta, contracts valid on March 31 have been automatically extended until new ones enter force to replace them.

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