In May 2022, the enactment of Law 4931/2022 (“Doctor for all, equal and quality access to the services of EOPYY and Primary Health Care and other emergency provisions”) replaced the primary healthcare system introduced in 2017 with a model of public-private partnerships (PPPs).
All adults are required to register with a personal doctor who will guide them through the National Health System (ESY) and serve as a gateway to health services. The new law stipulates that the personal physician is selected by the citizen, with the possibility to transfer once a year. The choice can be made either with doctors who currently serve in public primary health care facilities, or with private doctors contracted with the National Organization for the Provision of Health Services (EOPYY). Starting on 1 October 2022, insured people who have not signed up for the new service will have to pay 10% more for prescribed medicines, diagnostic tests and procedures, for treatment at a private medical clinic contracted with EOPYY and for all other services provided by EOPYY. Those costs will go up another 10% on 1 January 2023 if the insured person still fails to comply with the new rules. However, the number of doctors in public units is not sufficient to cover the needs of the population, and private doctors, so far, appear less interested and unwilling to sign contracts with EOPYY.
Besides the administrative and organizational restructuring, and as part of the country’s National Resilience and Recovery Plan, the reform of the primary healthcare system also aims to:
- upgrade the building infrastructures and facilities of the health centers and other primary health care service points through the establishment of Public Private Partnerships;
- upgrade the medical equipment of health centers;
- extend the number of academic curricula to cover 75% of universities and modules in family medicine along with including the module of family medicine as part of the basic curriculum;
- retrain health professionals in modern practices by designing and delivering a learning and development framework as well as a training curriculum for the skills upgrading of medical staff harmonized with the latest trends in digital dimension;
- develop an integrated healthcare system by establishing an effective framework for chronic diseases management and chronic disease management units within the primary health care units; and
- design a new homogeneous compensation system for health professionals that will allow to bring more family doctors into the primary health system.