"The My Health prevention program should be mandatory," said MP Norbert Pietrykowski in an interview with Medexpress during the Patient Empowerment Congress.
Mandatory cancellation of appointments by patients. What are the consequences for not cancelling an appointment?
Published May 21, 2025 08:56
The "My Health" prevention program has just replaced the Prevention 40 plus program. In your opinion, will this new program equalize inequalities in access to preventive care?
The 40 Pulse Prevention program failed for a simple reason. There was no information about this program and therefore only 10 percent of those eligible took advantage of it. We decided to map the new program a bit on the Prevention 40 plus program, and I would like to refer to what we talked about at the Patient Empowerment Congress. Indeed, perhaps let's introduce mandatory cancellation of appointments by patients who are standing in line to see a specialist. If a patient does not cancel such an appointment, he or she will not be able to get to that specialist "on the National Health Service" for two years. It can't be like this, that some people really wait for two years at a time, and others just ignore, don't come, because they just had other things to do.
The second point, regarding the "My Health" program, indeed, I often hear that tests are expensive, and here we have a very wide panel of additional tests that have entered the program: fecal occult blood, PSA for men, anti-HCV - I encourage people to take advantage of this. Maybe make it mandatory as well.
If a patient uses the services of the National Health Fund, I think that this health balance should be made mandatory at the PCP clinic. Let's make this program mandatory, so that we don't wake up again with our hand in the night and find out after four years that again 10 percent of patients have benefited from the "My Health" program. Patient organizations need to talk about this, so that we end this myth that tests are expensive, while next door there are a dozen tests that we can do free of charge, all it takes is a little willingness and a conversation with a nurse or doctor in primary care.
Every nurse is very familiar with this program, because it is only modified, and 4 years they worked in the Prevention 40 plus program. Also for them it will be nothing new.
What will be the role of PCPs to make this program a success and patients want to take advantage of it?
Information, first and foremost! If a patient is and is waiting for a primary care doctor, there should be information about this program, because everything starts in the head. Of course, we can introduce bans, like e-cigarettes - which we have done now, but I think there should be this famous poster in every school in Poland: "Cigarettes are for D.". So that young people have this poster in front of their eyes. It is a brilliant poster and should be prominently displayed in every school. Let's start with this. With simple methods.
