News and Media

At a meeting held last week the government approved amendments to the Regulation on calculation and payment of cash compensation and benefits from public social security related to the introduction from the 1st of January 2015 of an electronic medical certificate. This was announced by the press office of the Council of Ministers. According to the changes the data entered in the electronic register of medical certificates and decisions on appeal, should be taken into account in assessing the right and determining the amount of the cash compensations and benefits.

Regulated are the entities that present the data contained in the issued medical certificates to the NSSI – attending doctors and medical advisory committees through the medical institutions they are subordinated to.

The insurers and self-insured will no longer be obliged to check whether their medical certificates are issued in accordance with the legislation regulations. The requirement to attach the report of the Medical advisory committee or a transcript of the death certificate to the medical certificates of persons on leave due to death or serious illness of a mother of a child up to 2 years old will be dropped. In both cases, the documents will be collected automatically.

Specified are the beneficiaries and the documents for submission, and the starting point from which the period for payment of compensation is calculated, depending on whether the payment is made on the basis of the data in the issued medical certificates and the documents submitted in the relevant territorial unit NSSI, or on the basis of documents only.

The Agreement for cooperation for implementation of effective control over the funds in the field of interventional cardiology and cardiac surgery, was signed last week. The press center of the Fund announced that the Agreement was between the NHIF, the companies in cardiac and interventional cardiology and the national consultants in cardiac surgery and invasive cardiology, announced

The Agreement provides a framework for cooperation between the parties according to their competence, subject to the Bulgarian legislation and applicable regulations. The NHIF informed that within the framework of this cooperation the measures for effective spending of NHIF for cardiology and cardiac surgery are to be developed, while significantly improving the quality of medical services to patients.

“The Parties agreed on the understanding that it is necessary to perform regular and immediate quality control of the procedures performed by a joint expert body that has the power to draft amendments to the relevant legislation, such as:

– in the control activity of the NHIF to include monitoring of the number of the patients diagnosed, but not directed to cardiac surgery or interventional treatment in accordance with European practice and further discussion of these cases by so-called “heart team” including, a cardiologist, an invasive cardiologist and cardiac surgery specialist;

– in cardiac clinical pathways (CP) as a requirement to include a discussion of each case by the so-called “heart team”;

– to perform categorization of the invasive cardiology centers based on the material and technical equipment to perform complex interventions;

– to perform licensing of the high-tech activities – transcatheter valve replacement, aortic endoprosthesis;

– to create a joint expert and ethical working ethical body with clearly defined and disclosed rules of action and the power to impose sanctions. The expert body should have legality substantiated possibility to inspect facilities.” – announced also the Fund.

Today, with a charity campaign in favor of the Fund for treatment of children the Bulgarian Medical Association commemorates the Day of the Bulgarian physician. On October 19, the holiday of St. Ivan Rilski, our physicians traditionally celebrate their professional holiday.

At an official ceremony the winner of this year’s Physician of the Year Award was named – Associate Professor Krum Katzarov, Head of the Clinic of Gastroenterology in MMA.

“All doctors and all citizens can send SMS at a price of BGN 1 to charity, and the donated funds will be transferred directly to the account of the Fund for the children,” said the President of the Medical Association Dr. Tsvetan Raichinov:

“The reason behind this step is that the fund ran out of money and there is an acute need for treatment of children now. That’s why we established this number. The number is 17 777, the text is “fond”, written in Latin, and we hope our doctors and the Bulgarian people to respond.”

Dr. Raichinov commented on the fact that the Bulgarian doctors promote raising of funds for the treatment of children abroad:

“When the state obviously can not allocate the necessary funds, not enough is done, so that these children can be treated here in Bulgaria, and they have to be sent abroad. I think this is a reasonable step.”

The BMA wants the physicians to have guaranteed treatment for infections acquired in the workplace. This was announced by the Professional Association during the Congress of Nephrology in Hissar. The Medical Association undertakes the initiative entitled “Heal our healers”, the aim of which is with legislative changes to ensure payment by the state of the screening for the most common infections faced by physicians. It insists upon infection the medics to be guaranteed the most modern treatment. The doctors, nurses and dentists are among the groups most at risk of infection with hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV – said the deputy chairman of the Bulgarian Medical Association Dr. Cyril Elena:

“The initiative is intended to develop proposals for legislative changes in legislation allowing the medical staff to be treated with priority, with innovative products, with special treatments which would cover the risks associated with the profession. The second part of our activity is to use all our resources and contacts with the media, in order for this initiative to be disseminated and to seek public support – to convince the public that the health of medical professionals should be preserved or restored, so that we can assist our patients.”

There are no problems with the regulatory standards provided for the last quarter of the year. This was announced by the press center of the NHIF in connection with the emerging information that the refferals for specialists have been cut by 20% and those for testing – by 40%. According to the Fund, the difference between the estimated refferals for the last quarter of 2014 and for the fourth quarter of 2013 was 2%, as shown in the table:

Forth quarter of 2013 Forth quarter of 2014

Refferals for consultations with specialist (total) 1 616 359 1 583 098

In connection with acute cases 1 197 621 1 106 306

Dispensary monitoring 418 738 476 792

In 2014, in the National Framework Contract for Medical Activities (NFC for MA 2014) the Bulgarian Medical Association and the NHIF agreed upon a price increase of the examinations, which the institution pays to the specialists for the health insured patients. To comply with the parameters of the National Health Insurance Budget Act, the increase of the funds for examinations is at the expense of the volume of the regulatory standards. The decrease of the refferals for consultations with specialists compared to last year is due to the increased in the number of dispensarised persons with mandatory consultations assigned.

The NHIF informs that the general practitioners and specialists can use an additional 10% above the set quarterly regulatory standards. There is also the possibility of exceeding the regulatory standards by an additional 15% to be compensated in the next quarter, and the unused refferals of the preceding quarter can be absorbed in the current.

There is an option the unused refferals for dispensary monitoring to be transferred for acute cases. Also defined are the reserves in the NHIF and the RHIF, out of which additional resources for general practitioners and specialists should be allocated, if they have expressed such a need.