Public policy changes in public funding of family doctors in Slovenia
by Katja Triller Vrtovec
International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management (IJPSPM), Vol. 9, No. 4, 2022

Abstract: In Slovenia, patients report difficulties registering with a family doctor (FD), even in dense urban areas, since the patient-to-FD ratio is well below the EU average and not improving. Moreover, public primary healthcare providers (PCP) report difficulties with the financial liquidity that endangers the regular payment of employed FDs' salaries and constantly call for additional budget funding in the healthcare sector, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. It is therefore questionable, whether or not the PCP, which perform economic activity under the EU standards, respect human rights of all the stakeholders in the healthcare sector. Therefore, in this paper, I analyse the existing regulations on the public financing of FDs in Slovenia that seems to pose significant problems to patients' timely access to health care and does not facilitate the FDs' goal of delivering the patients' constitutional right to healthcare services. I discuss some better alternative solutions that would promote the patients' right to effective primary healthcare, attract more medical students to specialise in family medicine and consolidate the fiscal sustainability of the primary healthcare sector, which is at grave risk of collapse due to a dysfunctional healthcare payment and delivery system.

Online publication date: Fri, 01-Jul-2022

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management (IJPSPM):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com