%0 Journal Article
%T Organisation and financing of the health care systems of Bulgaria and Greece ¨C what are the parallels?
%A Nikolaos M Exadaktylos
%J BMC Health Services Research
%D 2005
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1472-6963-5-41
%X This study was prepared by using all the published data related to both Bulgarian and Greek Medical Care systems. Besides, personal communications with related offices such as administration offices of hospitals and Ministries of Health were made.In both countries, besides the compulsory insurance there is also additional voluntary insurance which is provided by private companies. The most important difference is the family doctor (specialist in general medicine) existing in Bulgaria. Every insured person needs a 'referral form' completed by the family doctor before visiting a hospital for medical attention (except emergencies). In contrast, in Greece an insured person can directly visit any hospital without needing any forms and independent of the severity of their health problem. An important disadvantage of the Greek health system is the low number of hospitals (139), in relation to population. In contrast, there are 211 hospitals in Bulgaria, although its population is lower than in Greece.In both Greek and Bulgarian health systems changes must be done to solve the problems related to informal payments, limited financing, large debts, lack of appropriate investment policy, lack of an objective method for the costing of medical activities and inefficient management.Bulgaria provided universal health care free at the point of use prior to its transition from communism in 1989. Throughout the 1990s, the Soviet-style model in central and eastern Europe that provided free health services has been subject to radical reforms [1]. The medical care system in Bulgaria, which consisted of two levels (pre-hospital and hospital), is undergoing "medical reform" which officially began in 1999 [2] (based on three laws adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria: the Health Insurance Law (1998), the Law on the Professional Organizations of Physicians and Dentists (1998) and the Law on Health Care Establishments (1999), because the state funded health care system
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/5/41