The Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) is reassessing its existing quality criteria and performance indicators for GHS personal doctors and developing new ones, with the aim of applying a new compensation scheme from the first quarter of 2027.
According to information obtained by philenews, the HIO has already begun implementing what the GHS’s original design envisaged: that only 70 per cent of personal doctors’ pay would be calculated according to the number and age of beneficiaries on their list, with the remaining 30 per cent paid on the basis of quality criteria and performance indicators.
In recent years, personal doctors have instead been paid on a roughly 80-20 split weighted towards the capitation-based share. Doctors themselves have already asked for a reassessment of the current arrangement, and the HIO has now begun the necessary process, aiming to present its final proposal to the Pancyprian Medical Association and the relevant scientific societies within October, once agreement is reached between the two sides, philenews has learned.
The relevant HIO department is currently working to reassess and revise the existing criteria and indicators where this is considered necessary, taking into account the positions and suggestions raised by the scientific societies representing personal doctors at their most recent meeting. It is also developing new quality criteria and performance indicators to expand the current scheme and cover the 30 per cent share envisaged in the original design.
Both the Health Minister and President Nikos Christodoulides are being kept informed on the matter, philenews understands. Neofytos Charalambides has already sent the HIO a letter urging it to take into account World Health Organisation recommendations for the GHS as it prepares the new scheme. Separately, Christodoulides and the Health Minister have briefed the Cyprus Federation of Patient Associations on the issue, at their most recent meeting.
What doctors requested last June
At their last meeting with the HIO, at the start of summer, the three scientific societies representing personal doctors submitted a joint memorandum setting out specific requests and suggestions.
The doctors argued, in both the memorandum and public statements, that the indicator currently used to measure the number of referrals they issue does not amount to a quality-based assessment, but a numerical one that “ultimately ends up punishing doctors.”
They also proposed expanding their range of preventive services through the application of related criteria, along with changes to how vaccines are administered to beneficiaries.
