More trips to a sanatorium under the National Health Fund? This news will not please the patients
Although the waiting time for spa treatment under the National Health Fund is shorter than before, you cannot count on more stays under the National Health Fund during the year. Why?
Trips to a sanatorium are very popular among seniors. The waiting time for treatment in Poland has been shortened thanks to e-referrals. At the end of 2024, Maciej Karaszewski, director of the Department of Medicine at the Ministry of Health, presented this information to MPs. You have to wait about 9-10 months for a stay, much shorter than before the pandemic, although it varies depending on the voivodeships (in large voivodeships you have to wait 10-11 months, but in smaller ones even 3-7).
Sanatorium on the National Health Fund. You have to wait a year for the next trip
However, patients are interested not only in getting to the sanatorium faster, but also in the possibility of more frequent use of the rich offer of Polish health resorts under the National Health Fund. Currently, they are only entitled to one such trip a year.
“In the case of adults, it is recommended to use spa treatment and rehabilitation in a spa sanatorium no more often than once every 18 (eighteen) months, however, another referral may be submitted after 12 months from the end of the previous spa treatment,” we read on the National Health Fund website.
High demand for treatment in health resorts
“Fakt” informs that for now there is no reason to expect that there will be more trips under the National Health Fund. This information was provided by the Ministry of Health. Officials briefly said that the ministry “does not plan to shorten the 12-month grace period, which must expire from the date of completion of spa treatment to the date of issuance of the next referral by a health insurance doctor.”
The demand is huge. The press office of the Ministry of Health reminded that as many as 1/3 of the referrals received every year by the provincial branches of the National Health Fund were those issued within a period of less than a year from the date of the last completed treatment. These were the data presented in 2019, when a one-year waiting time for submitting another referral was introduced. Officials also argued that right after the end of the treatment or rehabilitation period, the doctor is not able to “properly assess the impact of the just completed therapy on the patient’s health due to the too short time that has passed since it was completed.”
Therefore, guests can look for attractive discounts on commercial stays. It is also worth remembering that in autumn and winter the rates for stays in sanatoriums are lower.
