With the update of the budget of the MH the payments will be resumed

The last money paid to doctors as compensation for pensioners’ user fee for was for the month of July. The sum amounted to 1,592,096 BGN, and the payment was made only in September. This was indicated in a reference from the Health Ministry.

The Ministry acknowledged that there are serious delays in the payment of compensations and indicated the cause of this – the depletion of the approved funds in the budget of the Ministry of Health. We will call to mind here that the planned funds to compensate the difference in pensioners’ user fee were 8 million BGN for the whole year.

Only for the activity from January to the end of July, however, the amount paid far exceeded the projected amount: its total sum amounted to 10914306 BGN.

The data is not surprising. With the first payment for that sector it became clear that the projected 8 million BGN would not be enough. It remained for one to guess when the funds will end, and how much the deficit will be, so that dentists and doctors from Primary Outpatient Care and Specialized Outpatient Care would receive all that is due.

The estimates of the Ministry of Health indicate that for the full payment of the compensation for the entire 2014 – 15 million BGN will be required – almost double the projected sum.

At the same time the institution recalled that the Ministry of Health budget was reduced by 18.5 million BGN during the first update of the NHIF budget. At that time the budgets of almost all ministries were reduced. “The reduced budget jeopardizes the implementation of set policies, programs and activities of the Ministry of Health,” – was pointed out from there.

The institution also informed that at this stage there is no possibility to provide funds for transfers to the NHIF within the approved budget. But an update of the state budget is expected to take place and with that the transfers to the NHIF for that sector to be resumed.