The Right of Patient - Consumer to Reimbursement for Cross - Border Healthcare

The Right of Patient - Consumer to Reimbursement for Cross - Border Healthcare

Čolaković, Maja
Bevanda, Marko

Summary: The exercise of fundamental market freedoms in the European Union includes the freedom of movement of persons in order to attain the right to health care. A part of the possibility to access health services in the Member States where they are insured, the citizens of the Union can also demand such a service in another Member State and obtain reimbursement. This is the so called cross-border healthcare. Directive 2011/24/EU on the application of patients' rights in cross-border healthcare is a new legal instrument adopted to ensure the mobility of patients within the European Union and eliminate the existing differences in the application of two parallel systems - one based on Regulation 883/2004/EC on the coordination the social security system, and the other on the principles and views of the Court of the European Union, which are based on the provisions of the Treaties on the fundamental market freedoms. The first report of the Commission on the application of Directive 2011/24/EU from October 2015 shows that all the objectives proclaimed in the Directive have not yet been achieved and all the dilemmas related to different mechanisms of reimbursement for cross-border healthcare in the EU have not been eliminated. Analysis of the organization of health care systems in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the right to mobility of patients within and outside of its borders illustrates the complexity and inefficiency of this system, the discrimination related to patient’s mobility as well as a high level of noncompliance of Bosnian legislation with the acquis in this area.

Article
PeerReviewed

ISSN 2303-5706

International Burch University

2016-04-15

3292