The transfer of the Social Health Insurance Fund to the Ministry of Finance should not lead to changes for patients. This was stated at a government briefing by Kazakhstan's Finance Minister Madi Takiyev, responding to a question about what changes Kazakhstanis can expect in the mandatory social health insurance system after the fund came under the ministry's management, reports infohub.kz.
According to the finance minister, since February of this year the fund has been transferred to the Ministry of Finance. "A lot of work has been done. A new integration system has been rewritten, a new information system has been written — Qalqan. Today all payments are made through this payment system. It is integrated with both the treasury and the fund," said Madi Takiyev.
Responding to a question about what exactly will change for patients, the minister emphasized: "By and large, nothing should change. For him (the patient — ed.), it is important that his waiting time is reduced, and that normal payments are made for him, so that he does not have to pay extra out of his own pocket."
He added that for this purpose, 1.933 trillion tenge were transferred from the republican budget to the Social Insurance Fund — this money went further to hospitals and clinics.
"At the beginning of the year, we had 68 clinics on the list that had overdue accounts payable. Work has been done on them, we are restoring them, the remaining balance is about 10 billion tenge. I think by the end of the year, at the latest by the first quarter of next year, we will bring them out of rehabilitation. In general, such work is being carried out," Takiyev added.