– For 30 years we have been fighting for patients who have oxygen concentrators to be reimbursed for electricity costs. So far, there is no such thing - said prof. dr hab. n. med. Paweł Śliwiński, head of the 2nd Department of Lung Diseases at the Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases in Warsaw during the Wednesday session of the Parliamentary Health Committee. The Ministry of Health replies that currently there is no possibility for the National Health Fund to take into account such costs. However, work is underway to introduce a model of comprehensive care for patients with respiratory problems.
Mechanically ventilated patients will not bill energy costs. However, work is underway on a comprehensive care model
Published Jan. 12, 2023 09:45
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As Katarzyna Lubnauer, MP from the Nowoczesna party, said, the patient community points out that with the increase in costs related to home ventilation, such as electricity costs, the help they receive is often insufficient.
– The currently implemented solutions mean that a certain pool of kilowatt hours is sold at lower prices. In the case of people with disabilities, this pool is slightly increased, but in the case of mechanically ventilated people, this still does not meet their needs. They are calling for the pool to be significantly higher in their case. They are afraid that if they cannot afford to maintain mechanical ventilation at home, they will end up in hospital, noted Katarzyna Lubnauer.
Professor Paweł Śliwiński added that talks on reimbursing patients for the costs of energy used to power the concentrators have been going on for over three decades and so far there has been no breakthrough. However, changes are needed. However, Deputy Minister of Health Maciej Miłkowski is of the opinion that these costs cannot be settled as part of benefits. However, work is underway to change the basket of guaranteed benefits
– These costs are not the costs of the health care system and the National Health Fund cannot take them into account. It is planned that at the beginning of February we will get the material to change the guaranteed benefits basket. The scope of the changes is wide, as it concerns both basic health care and long-term services, mechanical ventilation or outpatient specialist care. We need billing products for patient qualifications, as well as clear rules for monitoring the effectiveness of using services - summed up Maciej Miłkowski.
Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariff System is also working on a model of comprehensive care for mechanically ventilated patients. It's about, among others o developing objective qualification criteria. Prof. Paweł Śliwiński, on the other hand, pointed out that the rules on the coincidence of benefits should also be changed. Currently, it is often the case that the valuation of co-existing benefits cancels out.
- There are such pathologies that a patient who has chronic respiratory failure and, by definition, must breathe with a concentrator, also has indications for a ventilator, but the current regulation does not include an oxygen concentrator in the list of equipment. As a result, a patient with chronic insufficiency receives a ventilator but is not supplied with a concentrator by the provider. It is necessary to analyze these types of situations and ensure that these types of benefits can be aggregated. It should not be that one team provides the concentrator, the other the ventilator, and a third party provides rehabilitation. All these services should be coordinated by one team - said the expert.
Member of Parliament Katarzyna Lubnauer also pointed out that patients struggle with difficulties in accessing a specialist doctor. The waiting time for access to benefits, including those related to qualification for mechanical ventilation, is often up to two hundred days.
