Since the Ministry of Health warned doctors not to grant patients fictitious medical leaves, the Romanian state has saved approximately 1.5 billion lei per year, said the Minister of Health, Alexandru Rogobete, in an interview for Știrileprotv.ro.
The phenomenon had reached huge proportions, with tens of millions of sick leave days granted without real coverage, the minister explained: “It was very clear that starting from Thursday the number of medical leaves increased significantly. Then on Monday it decreased again. Then it increased before the public holidays, before Children’s Day, before St. Mary’s, when there were those peaks, those increases that did not respect that trend considered normal.”
Rogobete emphasized that these practices also affected really sick patients: “They (the fictitious patients – no) take from the mouth of the patient in the hospital – who needs treatment, diagnosis, medicine – so that we can pay for the invented medical leaves of some”.
On average, between July and December, the state saved 120 million lei per month just from fictitious sick leaves, which means almost 1.5 billion lei per year. “With the money saved, we were able to introduce 41 new drugs to the compensated list, drugs that waited up to two and a half years to reach patients”the minister added.
The minister explained that there will also be exceptions: chronic or cancer patients.
“What we discussed would be that those repetitive medical leaves for the same disease code – for example for radiation therapy, for oncology patients – to introduce some exceptions for disease codes and for those situations where things are obvious”, he declared.
To limit the phenomenon, the first day of sick leave will not be paid from February 1. Rogobete stated that the measure applies only to patients who do not have chronic diseases and do not frequently go to the doctor for treatments or investigations.
“The phenomenon is impossible to control, not only in Romania. In Spain, for example, the first three days of sick leave are not paid for most taxpayers. Similar measures have also been implemented in Belgium and Portugal”explained the minister.
The Minister of Health also said that “dozens of doctors” they have already been sanctioned for the fictitious issuance of medical leaves, in the framework of the controls still in progress.
