Republic of Serbia

Ministry of health

Project’s goal:

The goal of the Project is to provide technical and expert support to the reorganisation and improvement of services provided by Dom Zdravljas (DZ) in order to deliver efficient and quality health services. The plan for the reorganisation of the DZs is based on a formula of patients registering with a chosen doctor. This new form of financing the primary healthcare system (capitation) will facilitate this reform.

There are 28 DZs participating in the Project - Subotica, Kikinda, Pančevo, Sombor, Novi Sad, Sremska Mitrovica, Šabac, Požarevac, Kragujevac, Ćuprija, Zaječar, Užice, Čačak, Kruševac, Niš, Pirot, Leskovac, Novi Beograd, Zemun, Palilula, Voždovac, Zvezdara, Smederevo, Savski Venac, Vračar, Kraljevo, Valjevo i Vranje.

The Project’s activities were launched in September 2007 and will last until the end of  2010. As part of these activities, all the incorporated DZs will receive IT equipment worth EUR 2,5 million.

National partners of the Project:

• Ministry of Health of the Republic of Serbia

• Serbian Health Insurance Fund

• Public Health Institute of Serbia „Dr Milan Jovanović Batut“

The Serbian Ministry of Health in 2003 created a vision of primary healthcare reform that will last until 2015. Meanwhile, this vision became the legal basis on which there is an obligation of implementation by all relevant actors.

Vision of primary healthcare reform in Serbia until 2015:

• Clear division of health protection levels – primary, secondary and tertiary

• To strengthen the role of primary healthcare (PHC) as „gate-keepers“ to the higher levels of care (to enable primary healthcare to absorb 80 per cent of all health services needed)

• To move primary healthcare’s focus from curative to preventive

• To enable equal, accessible and legal use of health services for all patients

• To strengthen patients’ rights

• To decentralise responsibility for primary healthcare and include local communities in the processes of financing and decision-making

• To develop a market-oriented form of financing primary healthcare

• To enable and regulate the participation of the private sector in the provision of healthcare services

During the last few decades and all over the world there have been significant reforms of healthcare financing, which inaugurate the best formula to enable the basic rules of each reform process. One of these reforms is the introduction of a new way of financing primary healthcare through capitation.

Serbian Law on Health Insurance (Article 146) provides for a chosen doctor who is qualified for at least one year in the field of general practice or medicine of labour, paediatrics, gynaecology and dentistry.

It is anticipated that there will be chosen doctors in the field of paediatrics and dentistry for children of kindergarten and school ages.

All adults should have the right to have their own general practicing doctor, while for all woman older than 15 to have their own gynaecologist.

The chosen doctor should:

   -    be dedicated to healthcare promotion and its services (for example, to support screening methods to prevent
        breast cancer, cervical cancer, diabetes, etc.)

   -    warn patients of the risk factors that can help to protect health

   -    advise patients on living a healthy way of life