Parliament's health committee did not vote on six bills to amend the Health Insurance Act. MPs debated the bills at first reading, but too few of them were present for a vote.
The vote was due after the debate and has been put off to the committee's next meeting. No date has been set.
The first bill comes from Bozhidar Bozhanov and a group of MPs. Under it, the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and providers with contracts with the fund could no longer ask for paper documents on facts that are available online. Health insurance booklets and other paper documents with data from electronic registers would be dropped. Every insured person would get an electronic notice about medical or dental care reported to the NHIF and about medicines paid for, both for themselves and for people they are a parent, guardian or carer of.
Asen Vasilev and a group of MPs want every insured person aged 14 or over to get an electronic notice about check-ups and tests they have had.
Venko Sabrutev and a group of MPs propose that the state, not the employer, pay health insurance contributions during the two years of maternity leave. The state already does this for students and pensioners. The authors say the money freed up could go to higher pay, expansion and new jobs in business.
Bozhanov's second bill abolishes the post of second deputy governor of the NHIF. The authors say there is no clear need for two separate posts with a similar institutional status.
In his third bill, Bozhanov proposes that the NHIF publish once a month, on the open data portal under the Access to Public Information Act, everything it paid for in the previous month. This covers services, medicines (including those under Article 266a of the Medicinal Products in Human Medicine Act), medical devices and dietary foods for special medical purposes. Members of the arbitration committees that handle disputes between healthcare providers and the fund would be chosen at random. Holders of a wholesale medicine trading licence would have to send data to the Bulgarian Drug Agency every day by 23:59. The data covers the quantities delivered and the specific individuals and companies that received medicines. The National Revenue Agency and the Customs Agency would have access to the data in the medicine verification system. The author says the changes would limit corrupt practices and abuse. He lists draining the health fund, fake hospital admissions, unneeded hospital beds, paying twice for expensive medicines, diverting medicines from the supply chain and excessively high prices for rare medicines.
The bill from Kostadin Angelov and a group of MPs scraps the paper health insurance booklets and brings in an electronic health card. It would exist in physical form and in electronic form in the "eZdrave" mobile app and in the National Health Information System. It also provides for a public national electronic register of vacant posts for medical specialists and trainee specialists in medical facilities.
Another provision in the same bill allows medicines to be used outside the terms of their marketing authorisation for post-exposure prophylaxis. The author says there is no approved procedure for antiretroviral drugs when staff in contact with people with certain infectious diseases are exposed to risk.
The same bill would also let the state give subsidies to multi-profile hospitals for acute care for their work in hard-to-reach or remote areas, when there is no other medical facility of the same type in the municipality.