Tickets for balneary treatment allocated to people assured in the public pension system and retired people in Romania.
This practice addresses two issues: valorisation of the benefits of natural, especially balneary resources and facilitation of the access of people with law income to balneary and medical healthcare services.
In this context the Romanian national pension system law can provide to retired people and other specific categories, as social benefits, tickets for balneary treatments/healthcare in the treatment units belonging to the National Public Pension House or other private units accredited for this services. Each year, the National Public Pension House (HPPH) is allocating a number of tickets at national level and establishes the conditions and selection rules. Each ticket covers 12 days of healthcare treatment in units belonging to the NPPH or private treatment units. A person can benefit of one free or partly funded ticket for healthcare in spa resort per year, with a stay of max. 16 days.
The practice is implemented, at county level, by the County Pension Houses that are responsible for receiving the application forms, analyzing and selecting the beneficiaries of the balneary tickets, in accordance with the criteria and rules published by the NPPH. Each County Pension House receives a number of tickets that are made available for potential beneficiaries during a year.
Beneficiaries of the tickets are: retired people, beneficiaries of the national public pension system, people with disabilities, people insured in the public pension system, other categories.
Resources needed
The source of funding for these healthcare tickets is the state budget for social insurances.
Evidence of success
The number of the beneficiaries of the balneary treatment services in Romania increased over the years. The amount allocated to balneary treatment tickets by the National Public Pension House was: 319 mil RON (70 mil EUR) in 2017, (total tickets contracted: 203299 public & private), 344,23 mil RON (74 mil EUR) in 2018, 335 mil RON (71 mil EUR) in 2019, and 370 mil RON in 2020 (78 mil EUR). About 20% of the total arrivals in balneary and balneary-climatic areas are the result of this practice.
Difficulties encountered
The main problems encountered in the implementation of this initiative are:the obsolete infrastructure for accommodation, healthcare & medical services, especially in the units belonging to the NNPH;the lack of qualified staff and the lack of recreational facilities and other public infrastructures.
Potential for learning or transfer
This good practice is interesting both for the potential of being transferred to other regions and for sharing the experience with other regions that are implementing similar type of practices.
This practice could be interesting for regions or countries facing the same problems as Romania. This could be an example for the national or regional authorities interested in exploiting the existing natural balneary or thermal resources and facilitating the access of certain category of people to balneary and medical healthcare services.
The transfer of such initiative could represent inspiration for regions/countries willing to improve the policies that support de development of thermalism or balneary sector.
Tags: Social, Services, Public sector, Health, Well-being, Leisure
