2024-07-30 15:29:38
The implementation of the budget of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) as of June 30, 2024 is balanced. This was said to journalists by Acting the manager of the National Health Insurance Fund Prof. Momchil Mavrov after a meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Fund.
There is a deviation from the implementation upwards by about one and a half percent, which, based on the fact that there is a greater expected implementation in the annual plan in the revenue part by about BGN 40 million, at this stage gives us confidence that the health insurance payments can be covered by the budget we currently have, he added. We will continue to strive to ensure that controls are in place and that we do not allow unnecessary volumes to increase costs in health insurance payments. According to him, the largest payments are in the field of hospital care, and the reason for this is the negotiation of the prices and volumes of hospital care at the beginning of this year.
Payments for the larger volume of hospital activities depends entirely on the funds available in the budget and on the receipts in the revenue part, Prof. Mavrov added. It is too early to say whether there will be enough funds for it at the end of the year, as before that the performance of the hospital medical care contractors as of August 31 must be analyzed, he added. In the analysis in September, there will be greater clarity, including the savings from which budget indicators could be used for internally compensated changes, in order to finance hospital care, which is more expensive this year, writes BTA.
Regarding a possible update of the NHIF budget, Prof. Mavrov commented that this depends on the consolidated financial framework of the state budget. According to him, it is too early to talk about an update of the NHIF budget because of the expected income from health insurance contributions, but there is a high probability that this year the entire reserve for health insurance payments will be used, including for drugs that are issued for home treatment. Prof. Mavrov recalled the decision from April this year, according to which the Fund began to fully pay 56 drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
Inspections are pending in the regional health insurance funds to see if they carry out sudden checks in the medical facilities located on their territory, Prof. Mavrov also said, pointing out that some of the regional funds do not carry out such checks, despite an order issued by him.
It is possible that there will be a delay in the payment for July and August from the NHIF to the pharmacies, Prof. Momchil Mavrov also said after a meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Fund. At the beginning of July, the NHIF and the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union agreed on a new method of payment by the NHIF to the pharmacies, as the BGN 36 million planned for this year in the budget of the Fund was exhausted in the middle of the year due to the increased number of written prescriptions – an increase of more than 600 thousand recipes per month. The funds for July and August, which the Treasury will pay to the pharmacies, will probably be taken from the NHIF reserve, Prof. Mavrov pointed out. There is BGN 238 million in the treasury reserve, but the decision to unblock the reserve can only be taken by the Supervisory Board, after the analysis of the implementation of the budget of the NHIF as of August 31.
The new method of financing the pharmacies will lead to predictability and to a smaller resource for paying for these activities from the Treasury, Prof. Mavrov also said and pointed out that it is expected that the NHIF will not allow an overspend of about BGN 20-25 million According to him, the new method of financing the activity of pharmacies by the NHIF is clear, transparent and predictable, and pharmacies can no longer rely on the number of prescriptions written, but on 15% of the value of the medicinal product purchased by them.