The total amount (44,576,446 euros to be exact) was down by 558,000 euros compared with 2016, although there was rise of 3,000 euros for travellers with the health card.
The general secretary of IB-Salut, Manuel Palomino, says that there are increasingly more tourists who rely only on the European card and do not have separate medical insurance.
Son Espases Hospital billed the highest amount for the heath card - 10.3 million euros. Among other figures, the health service in Ibiza invoiced 4.9 million euros; the primary health service in Majorca (public health centres, PACs) invoiced 2.2 million; three other hospitals - Manacor, Son Llàtzer and Inca - billed respectively 2.6 million, 2.1 million and 1.4 million.
Palomino forecasts that the amount for the European health card will increase in 2018 to at least 30 million euros because of new prices that were agreed at the start of the year. He adds that it could be as much as 32 million if a trend in the early months of this year is maintained. There has been a particular increase in demand during these months. In January and February, the health service sent out over 10,000 invoices that amounted to 5.4 million euros. This was 807,000 euros more than in the first two months last year. The average value of invoices in 2018 has gone up from 474 to 521 euros.
The total for the whole year, suggests Palomino, could be as much as 52 million euros, an increase of some 7.5 million.
6 comments
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I wasn't aware of the fact that the NHS didn't bill other countries. That sounds crazy considering the many eu nationals who either work or visit the UK. The EU health card was introduced 13-14 years ago. Lots of money lost then.
The NHS should hire the same lawyers who successfully scam the local hotels out of millions for dubious dietary illness claims suffered years ago.
..apparently the NHS, like all other healthcare systems in the EU is entitled to bill the home country of anyone it treats for the cost of the treatment......but, it has no administration mechanism to do that, whereas the Spanish system does have the mechanism in place. It's the NHS that is at fault here.
This just shows that until we in the UK - see the NHS as a business and BILL the countries and persons that should not be receiving treatment for free and should be the respective reciprocal countries . EG. Most tourists visiting from around the world to the UK will have Travel Insurance but eg. if they are involved in a traffic accident and spend three weeks in a UK NHS hospital. We DO NOT effectively charge their Insurance company. SADLY OUR ADMINISTRATION SYSTEMS IN OUR NHS IS NOT RUN AS A BUSINESS THAT BILLS.This is TOTAL MADNESS and that is one of the reasons why our NHS struggles.The Spanish are happy and quite rightly send a huge bill annually to the UK - interestingly, I am sure nothing is ever checked - so one could easily make up a lot a fabricated scans and treatments for example to inflate the bills.
That is logical only in theory. Health care is only one part of all agreements between EU countries. Some countries pay more than they get, etc. It would nevertheless be very interesting to see what share of the costs Spain can reimburse from the UK as well as from other EU countries. I think that they get only a certain percentage of the total costs, but I don't know. You seem to think that Spain makes a profit from providing health care to tourists, expats, retired people, etc. I think they make a loss.
All the Spanish people that work in the UK, and any Spanish Tourists, that use the NHS Health Services , wil generate a reciprocal huge bill to the IB-Salut Balearic Health Service. Surely there should be an Annual balance check between the two Services. The one with the higher debt, pays the difference. Or is this thought too logical.?