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European Union of Private Hospitals

A strong private healthcare sector

APRIL 2019.

The Romanian private healthcare sector rose by 12% in 2017, to 1.7 billion euro, according to an analysis by Romania-based medical services comparison website Mediprice. The number of private hospitals in Romania thus doubled between 2011 and 2016 to reach 200 units while the number of private medical centres tripled to over 600. A reversal of this upward trend is not in view.

The growth of the private healthcare sector is mainly due to the instability of the public healthcare system and its structural and financial weaknesses : low healthcare expenditure in percentage of GDP (4.95% in 2015- Eurostat), underperformance and under-spending on healthcare, lack of access and availability of healthcare facilities,…

According to Cristian Sas, Chief Executive Officer at Clinica Anima “The Romanian private healthcare sector is driven by private investments, private corporate subscriptions and fees for services from patients, who very often favour the private sector for the quality of care. Nonetheless Romanian patients pay much more out of pocket than other European citizens in average, which is a huge problem. The payment systems from the NHS based on diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) severely underpays complex pathology fervently below cost, discouraging hospitals to undertake complex cases, for which they would be not paid properly. On top not all private hospitals are under contract with the the NHS. The private sector is working closely with patients associations, political bodies, the health Ministry in order to impulse some positive changes, for the sake of our patients.”