Tougher times in Poland
Life in Poland for the private healthcare sector promises to be interesting under Law and Justice party (PiS party) which won the parliamentary elections in October 2015.
The new government reckons that any hospital or facility which is part-owned by the government should be not-for-profit. That puts paid to the business model pursued by privatization groups like EMC. Meanwhile, as we’ve reported before, it plans to create regional National Healthcare Insurance Funds, dismembering a national NHS system. That is likely to lead to more bureaucracy and the prospect of patients from one region struggling to get access to healthcare elsewhere.
Most observers remain sanguine. Said one: “PiS has now said that it will take at least two years to reorganize the NHIF. I suspect it is only now beginning to understand what it has bitten off.”
But that is likely to be scant consolation to operators who depend on public payors such as American Heart of Poland and Falck. It may also force newcomers such South African hospital chain Life to reconsider its business model. Poland still looks safer than South Africa but it is no longer quite so stable.
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