site.btaTripartite Cooperation Council Discusses Draft Changes to Medical Expert Examinations

Sofia, July 17 (BTA) - The National Council for Tripartite Cooperation (NCTC) Tuesday discussed a draft Council of Ministers decree amending and supplementing the Rules of Organization of the Work of Medical Expert Examination Bodies and Regional Registers of Medical Expert Examination, as well as a draft decree amending and supplementing the Decree on Medical Expert Examination.

Presenting the draft revisions, Deputy Health Minister Svetlana Yordanova said that the provisions currently in force have led to lack of experts and difficulties for patients. Under the draft changes, doctors are allowed to have a job outside of the territorial medical expert commission (TMEC), patients can submit documents by post, and the electronic system under construction will be linked to the National Health Insurance Fund to provide better control, Yordanova explained. Once e-records are introduced by the end of 2019, TMEC's electronic system will be improved further and become more transparent, she added. The revisions will improve the quality of medical expert examinations and will reduce the time for the decisions' receipt, Yordanova also said.

National Medical Expert Commission Chairman Kuncho Raychev said that the draft changes will: remove the subjective factor in medical expert examinations; provide care for people with a disability of under 90 per cent; guarantee care for children with a disability of or below 70 per cent; guarantee a 50 per cent permanently reduced work capacity for oncological patients after the fifth year of their disease; provide a 100 per cent reduced work capacity for patients after a heart or lung transplantation.

Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association representative Vassil Vassilev said that the draft revisions do not remove the opportunities for corruption and wasting of resources.

NCTC Chairman Valeri Simeonov objected to Vassilev's claim and said that within a month an analysis will be carried out and, if necessary, new changes will be made.

The heads of the Bulgarian Industrial Association and the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry also do not support the draft revisions.

Out of the employer organizations, the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria supports the draft changes.

The Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria is in favour of the draft revisions, while the Podkrepa Confederation of Labour requested a guarantee that no patients will be affected by the new medical expert examinations.

At the start of the NCTC meeting, National Ombudsman Maya Manolova was asked to leave because she is not a member of the NCTC and had not been invited to attend. Explaining her presence, she said that the drafts under review concern citizens' rights and that the law gives her the right to attend. NCTC Chairman Simeonov said that the NCTC rules cannot be violated, even if the Prosecutor General or the Prime Minister was the one to come uninvited.