Government to spend 7,600 rubles on medical services per patient next year

Irina Nevinnaya

^{”Rossiyskaya gazeta” – Federal Issue #4812 of December 12, 2008} 

Government expenditures on medical services are going to increase considerably next year. The increases of different medical services differ; yet, the government will raise its expenditures per patient by 70% compared to 2008. Such indicators are stated in the Programme of the Government Guarantee to provide free medical assistance to Russian people in 2009.

The government approves this document annually; it demonstrates how much means are required for a certain medical intervention and what resources finance it. The important thing that the Programme states for patients is the list of services they will get in a municipal or federal clinic for free. As for the medical facilities per se, there are also important norms to provide different kinds of assistance, which reflect the time needed to service one patient and the costs of rendering each kind of service. Given this, the financing of outpatient clinics and hospitals is computed with the source in the Foundation for Compulsory Medical Insurance. Besides, the Programme of the Government Guarantee is a basic document, which underlines the development of regional programmes in much detail for rendering medical assistance for free.

It is important that provided the budget of a region is affluent in resources, then the local programme [within the Programme in question] can guarantee more services and a longer list of medical assistance to people for free. But it may not slash the standards stated on the federal level.

The list of the services the document reflects is quite conventional: as before, the ambulance and emergency management services must be absolutely free, the same is true of the services of district doctors, medical specialists in outpatient clinics, as well as the inpatient assistance (including urgent hospitalization when a patient has an acute disease or trauma, and a planned treatment).

In addition, high-tech services must be provided for patients unpaid, too. The main difference of the year to come is the biggest compared to the last years increase in government expenditures on both different kinds of medical assistance and per patient on average. For instance, the payment for a patient’s visit to the doctor in an outpatient clinic will be made next year to the medical facility at the rate of 218 rubles (€5.5) compared to the last year’s rate – 133 rubles (€3.4). One day in inpatient clinic will cost 1380 rubles (€35) as compared to 759 rubles (€19) per day now. An emergency call of paramedics will cost 1710 rubles (€43); today, this figure is 1213 rubles (€30.5).

Altogether, in 2009 the government will spend 7633 rubles (€193) per patient on average (this norm for 2008 is 4503 rubles (€114)). Thus, the increase in government’s annual expenditures on healthcare per patient is almost 70%.

(Margarita Mikheyeva, the All-Russian MS Society)