Amendments to two laws – on public health insurance and electronic healthcare – passed the Czech Senate in June 2025. Both amendments now await the President’s signature and are expected to come into effect in January 2026.
Act on Public Health Insurance
According to the Minister of Health, the amendment aims to enhance the efficiency of healthcare financing, strengthen the role of health insurance funds and promote preventive care, with the overall goal of improving access to healthcare.
A key change is the restructuring of mandatory accounts within health insurance funds. The amendment abolishes reserve accounts and introduces a new account for public benefit activities (Fond obecně prospěšných činností), which will support initiatives aimed at improving healthcare quality. This includes partial financing of physicians’ specialty training, DRG activities conducted by the Institute of Health Information and Statistics (ÚZIS), and selected activities of patient organizations. Notably, health insurance funds will now be able to support residency training positions in specific regions or specialties, a role previously limited to the Ministry of Health, which is required to offer equal conditions nationwide.
The amendment also increases the permissible allocation for health promotion programmes from 0.5% to up to 3% of collected premiums. It intends to expand the possibilities of health insurance funds to offer benefits to insured individuals who take good care of their health. However, insurance funds may only access the increased budget if their financial situation is balanced.
Further changes include the possibility of receiving covered health services abroad up to the amount of local reimbursement if these services are unavailable in Czechia or if it is more efficient for the health insurance fund. This concerns both long-term and repeated use of care. Health insurance funds will be allowed to contract directly with foreign providers for such care.
Reimbursement for medical devices will now fall under a separate Act on the Categorization of Medical Devices, aimed at ensuring more flexible and timely responses to technological advances and evolving patient needs.
The amendment also aims to increase the accessibility of dental care. It responds to the ban on the use of amalgam dental fillings. Insurance funds will therefore reimburse their adult insured persons for the cheapest available white filling, or partially reimburse a higher-quality alternative.
Other passed changes include a report on the network of contractual providers of outpatient care in the fields or services specified in the governmental regulation on the local and temporal accessibility of health services (with the exception of pharmacies) and home care. This report will be published annually, by the end of November, by each health insurance fund. Furthermore, the health insurance funds will have the opportunity of centralized procurement for supplies of “centre” medicinal products for highly specialized providers. Also, the selection procedures at the regional offices before concluding a contract with the insurance fund will be eliminated. Decisions to contract a new provider will rest solely with the insurance funds.
Health insurance funds criticized the abolishing of the reserve account and the obligation to finance the management of the DRG system. The Ministry of Health countered by saying that the reserve accounts were not used in the past, even when the specific situations which the reserve accounts were established for occurred.
Furthermore, following substantial criticism, a proposed clause that would have allowed health insurance funds to seek (partial) reimbursement for care provided to individuals injured while committing illegal activities was removed from the final version.
Act on Electronic Healthcare
This amendment seeks to improve communication across the healthcare system and promote safer, higher-quality service delivery through digital tools.
The instruments introduced include:
- Electronic vaccination card
- e-Referrals
- Central register of preventive examinations
- Electronic vouchers for medical supplies (for example, crutches, bandages)
The “core” register is expected to be expanded to include, for example, data on medical fitness to drive motor vehicles, possession of weapons or ammunition permits. The shared health record will be divided into two parts – an emergency record with key data (for example, blood type, allergies) and a record of the results of preventive and screening examinations.
Medical check-up requirements for older drivers will also change. Instead of beginning at age 65, mandatory check-ups will now start at age 70. Drivers will no longer need to carry physical proof of these check-ups; police will verify them via digital records.