El blog de Maria

The proposal made by Spain was approved yesterday by Health Secretaries of the European Union.

Let’ set some examples on how this will operate in Spain:

Residents: New regulations do not affect this group:  in this case Spain receives from their countries of origin EUR 300 per month. The balance is beneficial for the Spanish Government, as the average expenditure on health is around 1,500 Euros.

Foreigners having an accident in Spain:  New regulations do not affect this group. Spain obviously assists these patients and the hospital bill is charged to the country of origin. The same happens in the opposite case, when a Spanish natinal have an accident in another EU country.

New regulations really affect two other groups, less frequent in practice:

a) A UK (as an example) national, resident in Spain who returns to the UK. Regulation 833, approved yesterday determines this treatment to be paid by the country he has contributed to during the most of his life.

b) A UK National, resident in Spain who wants to be treated in France ( as an example): Case law of the European Union establishes that it is the right of patients to choose where they want to be treated with some limitations allowed to be set by States. The Spanish proposal, which was finally approved in Europe yesterday, makes two requirements:
1. - Patients need to be indicated there by a doctor.
2. - The receiver center needs to be qualified by its country.
3. - Excluded those interventions that require hospitalization or very expensive treatments. The treatments need to be covered by the country of origin of patients and they cannot be experimental therapies.

The basis of these exclusions are that the EU guarantees free movement of patients, provided that this does not put at risk the sustainability of the national health systems or compromise their effectiveness.

By Maria L. de Castro

www.costaluzlawyers.es

Tarifa beach, Cadiz, Costa de la Luz, Spain by Clumsy Jim at Flickr.com