August the 13th, 2022 - There have been some absolutely horrific stories about the state of the Croatian healthcare system of late, and so it might seem as if nothing within the four walls of a hospital can be trusted. While that is absolutely not true at all, it is more than understandable that people fear potential illness. Some good news is that HZZO will now foot the bill for a test that can be done in a private facility, without all of the long waiting times typically associated with busy, overworked state hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

Magnetic resonance imaging, commonly known as MRI, can reveal an extremely wide array of issues going on within the human body in a remarkably clear way. This type of scan is used for all sorts of health issues, and the waiting times associated with them are sometimes bafflingly long. A new plan for which HZZO (Croatian Health Insurance Fund) will gladly foot the bill may relieve some of that pressing problem, which is an issue for both hospitals and of course for the patients.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, in order to reduce the usually extremely long national waiting list for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), HZZO came to what will be to most a very welcome decision on entering into a contract with Medikol Polyclinic.

As reported by the aforementioned polyclinic, according to that decision, HZZO will provide the Medikol Polyclinic with a list of patients who are on the waiting list for MRI scans in hospitals for a variety of different reasons, and the Medikol Polyclinic will provide them with magnetic resonance imaging through a referral by December the 31st, 2022. MRI scans carried out via this new agreement with HZZO will be available in Zagreb, Cakovec, Split and Osijek.

''We will be able to accept referals only from those patients who are already on waiting lists for MRI scans in hospitals and are on the list provided by HZZO,'' they wrote from Medikol when it announced the new plan on its Facebook page.

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February the 2nd, 2022 - There are many instances of people who are registered with a GP being unable to get hold of them after repeated attempts in numerous ways. Finally realising that this is an issue for people, a brand new HZZO email address has been launched for those types of situations.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, before deciding to team up together to try to tackle the issue of the vanishing GP, the Ministry of Health and HZZO (Croatian Health Insurance Institute) announced that they had been receiving more and more complaints from insured persons about the difficulties they were facing when it came to obtaining healthcare in the offices of their selected General Practitioners due to an inability to contact them in person, by phone, email or otherwise. 

Perhaps carrier pigeons hadn't yet been tried out by those in need of their GP's services, for which they or their employers pay every month, but we can wager a guess that this would also have failed. According to the Health Ministry, they received more than 3,000 patient reports on such matters, which is quite disappointing to say the least.

Due to the large number of complaints of this nature, HZZO has established a new email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to which insured persons can send their complaint.

The complaint sent to this new HZZO email address must state the individual's personal data (their name and surname, OIB and contact telephone number) and the name and surname of the selected doctor about whom the insured person is complaining.

Without the aforementioned data sent to the new HZZO email address, the Croatian Health Insurance Institute will not be able to do anything, ie get in touch with the doctor in question and/or help in the urgent resolution of whatever problem that the insured person has, they explained from HZZO.

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January the 18th, 2022 - Following the release of the official results of last year's Croatian census, which revealed not only another worrying drop in numbers in terms of the population but other uncomfortable facts such as the sheer amount of those remaining people who drawing their pensions, it has turned out that there are very many ''phantom'' Croatian Health Insurance policy holders, too.

The hunt is now on to find 209,000 Croatian Health Insurance policy holders who aren't even registered as living in the country at all. HZZO (Croatian Health Insurance Fund) has its work cut out when it comes to cancelling the policies of all those who are still likely coming home for treatment but live elsewhere.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, despite the fact that the 2021 census has revealed that all of the country's counties as well as the City of Zagreb have fewer inhabitants than they had 10 years ago, Croatia still has 209,000 more Croatian Health Insurance policy holders than registered residents and more voters than adult citizens, writes Vecernji list.

According to the first results of last year's census, the Republic of Croatia has a maximum of 3,888,529 inhabitants, while on January the 3rd, 2022, it somehow had as many as 4,097,903 Croatian Health Insurance policy holders.

After the census, the voter register, which includes 3,690,623 adult citizens, will have to be "cleaned up".

Demographers have previously warned about issues caused by fictitious or ''phantom'' Croatian Health Insurance policy holders, explaining that they are most likely Croatian citizens or residents, Serbs who have left Croatia, Croats from neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatian citizens who emigrated but didn't ''check out'' of the system, and foreigners who own real estate in the country but don't live here.

It isn't possible to estimate just how many of these insured persons who aren't residents of Croatia use the so-called "free" healthcare, and how many are no longer here, don't use the system, and are only formally still registered with HZZO.

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As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes on the 22nd of December, 2019, according to the Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO), patients will have what they needed ordered by their family doctors, while procedures such as MR and CT scans, as well as cataract examinations and gastroscopies will be booked by specialists or hospital administrators.

This manner of doing things will reduce waiting lists, help to prevent confusion and aid both patients and the hospitals conducting the procedures themselves, ensuring a better delivery of service and more satisfaction on both ends.

The brand new, unique calendar for ''ordering'' diagnostic procedures for patients in hospitals was launched this week, which should introduce more order in queues and reduce waiting lists for nine medical procedures, and so far, 42 of 64 Croatian hospitals have been included in the calendar, the Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO) stated on Thursday.

The Croatian hospitals included are those that have a compatible IT system, while other hospitals will be networked in properly by May next year. The new ordering method currently covers nine long-awaited procedures, MR and CT scans, Holter ECG, heart ultrasounds, ergometry, cataract surgery, breast ultrasounds, thyroid gland ultrasounds and gastroscopies, and the Croatian Health Insurance Fund's plans are to continue to expand this list.

As mentioned, according to HZZO's new method, patients will have what they needed ordered by their family doctors, while procedures such as those listed above will be arranged by specialists or by hospital administrators. Patients will also be able to cancel their appointments through the eGrađanin (eCitizen) health portal, as well as arrange for the changing of the dates and medical institution for certain procedures.

"A single ordering calendar will prevent multiple patient orders from hospitals, which currently unrealistically increases waiting lists, and ordering by OIB automatically prevents the same person from ordering at another institution," HZZO Director Lucijan Vukelić said during a recent press conference.

Since the establishment of the system on December the 15th, 2019, as many as 1088 multiple orders have been detected in just three days, meaning that the Croatian Health Insurance Fund's new system works.

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