Curatio International Foundation and Galt & Taggart have presented a joint report on the Georgian healthcare sector, which assesses the financial condition of the hospital sector. The document reports, that the universal health care program is carried out with overspending every year.
The organizations estimate that the overspending of the universal health care program has totaled about GEL 350 million in 7 years, which is 8% more comparing to the approved budget.
"This over-spent 350 million does not include the debt to be paid to medical institutions according to the state audit report of December 31, 2018. The debt of medical institutions totals to 201 million GEL, which increases the total over-spending to 551 million GEL. This is 12% of the approved budget.
According to our estimates, early in 2019, the debt towards the medical institutions increased from 201 million to almost 450 million. However, at the expense of reducing the utilization of services in 2020, the state repaid a significant portion of this debt and reduced the remuneration period for medical institutions from 6 to 3 months.
It is also noteworthy that the extra costs of the universal health care program are partially covered at the expense of other health care programs. In 2014-2020, other programs spent GEL 76 million (or -4%) less than planned, which partially offset the spending problems of the universal health care program," the report reads.
