Health Systems in Transition - Hungary - World Health Organization ...

Health systems in transition Hungary 181
In October 2010, the Ministry of National Resources published a discussion
plan to assist in the preparation of a government decree containing a detailed
strategy for the health care system. This plan consists of a list of actions and
general objectives for the health care system, albeit without establishing direct
links between the two. The plan includes policy interventions such as:
• setting up a public care coordination system;
• allowing privatization only in the case of outpatient providers and
family doctors;
• improving quality assurance by establishing an accreditation system
for the providers;
• easing the restrictive system of volume limits used in the payment
of providers;
• reducing hospital debt;
• developing eHealth comprehensively;
• implementing technical improvements in payment methods;
• refining emergency care. (Ministry of National Resources, 2010).
In sum, the current government seems to be returning to the health policy
pattern of the governments in power between 1990 and 1994 and between 1998
and 2002, focusing on ensuring strong public influence in the governance and
in the organization of the health care, while the payment methods are to be
improved through incremental technical upscaling of innovations. However,
it is not clear from the current policy papers how the government wants to
address the serious problems of resource collection, which is the main cause of
the long-lasting crisis of the Hungarian health care system.