Signing of framework contracts remains uncertain

The signing of the new framework contract between family doctors and the National Health Insurance House (NHIH) remains uncertain a day before the agreement in force expires.

Although authorities consider that there are no reasons for the new contract not to be signed, following the last alterations made to the contract, doctors claim that they are not sure whether the alterations they have required will be put into practice.

Therefore, they are taking into account the possibility of requesting another delay of the date for the signing of the new contract, which provides that the equivalent value of the health care service will be covered by the health insurance houses.

Doctors would like to be granted 30 morcontract as they do not want to rely on promises.

According to the President of the Family Doctors Association, Doina Mihăilă, the proposal put forward by the Minister of Health puts them in advantage while the document issued by the NHIH throws them into bankruptcy.

"The regulations will be published in the Official Gazette on 31 May or 1 June. Of course, we will not sign immediately, we have to read the contract first."

"If the alterations put forward by the Minister of Health are not accepted by the NHIH and they do not reach an agreement and if the alterations of the House will be the ones posted on the website, the answer will be firm: We will not sign the contract, we will step out of the system", Doina Mihăilă added.

The President of the NHIH, Lucian Duţă, expects the doctors to sign the contracts.

"It is a nice way of saying that we have solved a part of our issues, the ones related to patients. The other part remains given that there are some regulations that have not been accepted yet."


"The problems related to the survival of the family doctors'offices have not been solved yet, on the contrary. The regulations posted on the website by the NHIH throws us into bankruptcy from the first day’, the President of the Family Doctors Association stated.

99 percent of the offices financially supported by the NHIH

The first alterations made to the framework contract involved increasing the medicine budget so that patients could benefit from medicine prescription.

"There are regulations put forward by the NHIH and that remain unchanged.

Patients cannot afford three-month prescriptions and therefore we fail to come to an agreement. The proposal made by the Minister of Health is the one which we agree most with for now, Doina Mihăilă.added.

According to Doina Mihăilă, in order to avoid bankruptcy, family doctors"offices must be financially supported because the NHIN used to cover 99 percent of their expenses.

"This is how the system works. If they are not financially supported, they will not be able to survive’, Doina Mihăilă stated.

If the framework contracts are not signed, the offices will function outside the health insurance system as private offices.

The President of the NHIH, Lucian Duţă, could not be reached by telephone.

In his last statement given to Radio România Actualităţi, Lucian Duţă underlined that there was no problem left unsolved because most of the requests made by family doctors had been met with and he expected them to sign the framework contract.

Translated by: Raluca Mizdrea
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University