CNAS announces that, starting this year, patients will be able to perform medical tests settled throughout the month, no longer limited by the monthly ceilings of private laboratories, but with stricter prescription and scheduling rules.
Patients in Romania will be able to carry out state-sponsored medical tests throughout the month, not just in the first days, as is currently the case in many counties, after the National Health Insurance House (CNAS) will remove the ceilings applied to private laboratories, which until now blocked patients’ access to basic investigations, even when they were medically justified.
“We have money today in the sense that we have money left at the end of the month, every month we have unspent money from certain laboratories. Because there is that cap, we have to rebalance the budget the following month for the previous month and the patient is in the middle, lost along the way, without medical tests”, explained university associate Dr. Horațiu Moldovan, president of CNAS, in an interview on the Sănătatea FM podcast from RFI.
“The National Health Insurance House will this year remove the ceilings from medical analysis laboratories, so that the patient has access to diagnostic services in real time, when he needs it”, he announced.
The existing ceilings were quickly exhausted, and patients had to pay for the analyzes out of pocket or wait for the next tranche of funds, sometimes for several months, while, at the end of the month, CNAS was left with unspent money, due to the uneven distribution of requests between laboratories and the rigidity of the administrative system.
“Access to settled medical tests could finally enter a zone of normality. This year the caps on medical test laboratories will be removed, a measure intended to correct one of the most absurd dysfunctions of the system.” emphasized Horațiu Moldovan.
What exactly changes
Eliminating the ceilings does not mean increasing the budget, but the fact that doctors will recommend performing analyzes with less latitude, only in cases where they are unnecessary, in accordance with medical protocols.
“Our priority is to remove this cap as quickly as possible. It’s not about increasing the budget, it’s about using it properly,” pointed out the conf. univ. dr. Moldovan.
“It doesn’t make medical sense to do a PSA test every day,” explained the president of CNAS, adding that the specialists will establish the optimal frequencies for about 100 analyzes included in the basic package.
The measure follows the model previously applied to compensated drugs, where the removal of ceilings allowed fairer and more efficient access to treatments.
It should be emphasized that CNAS intends to continue expanding this logic also for imaging investigations (CT, MRI), in a phased process and prioritizing serious cases, such as oncology.
For patients, the change means that medical tests will be available exactly when they are needed, not just on the first days of the month. At the same time, the health system will be able to manage funds more efficiently, without unnecessary losses and blockages.
Priority will be given to patients who need a quick diagnosis, through standardized packages for conditions.
Currently, a usual set of analyzes costs approximately 400 lei, and imaging investigations can reach up to 1,200 lei.
