Methodology of health care for foreigners

Data on foreigners provided in this chapter come from the National Health Information System (NHIS) and have been processed by the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the CR (IHIS CR). To put it concretely, the data have been collected by national health registers (the National Register of Hospitalised Patients, the National Register of Reproduction Health), an information system of bodies for public health protection (the Register of Tuberculosis), and by an Annual report on the utilization of health care by foreigners. The aforementioned selected data sources on the health sector provide only partial information on the total utilization of health care by foreigners in the CR and their state of health.

Further information on data sources of the NHIS can be found on the website of the IHIS CR at: https://www.uzis.cz/index-en.php.

Besides information from data of the NHIS published here, the Health Insurance Bureau publishes data on utilization of health care by foreigners – citizens of the EU/EEA and Switzerland, and foreigners from countries with which it has signed an agreement on social security, including the area of health insurance and provision of health care, and data on costs spent on that health care. For more information see: https://www.kancelarzp.cz/index.php/en.

Methodological notes on the Tables

Utilization of health care by foreigners

Data on the utilization of health care by foreigners are measured by an annual report “V (MZ) 1‑01”. It is filled in only by providers of in-patient care for health care establishments denoted as hospitals regardless the type of care they provide to foreigners, i.e. including out-patient care. The report does not measure health care paid from the public health insurance. Therefore, it regards only foreigners who cover health care from health insurance policies concluded in the CR, insurance policies concluded abroad, in cash, or whose health care is reimbursed by state authorities (the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice, regional authorities, and the like). The figures also include asylum applicants accommodated in asylum facilities of the Ministry of the Interior, whose health care is paid by the Ministry of the Interior.

Due to an undetected error of several providers that provided (despite the methodology of the report) costs in CZK, while it had to be in thousands of CZK, overestimated results were presented in 2015 and 2016. As a substitute time series with revised data on utilization of health care by foreigners in hospitals in the CR outside the public health insurance are available.

Foreigners treated in hospitals by cause of hospitalisation

Data come from the National Register of Hospitalised Patients; they were included after two years again. Data from the years 2016 and 2017 were vastly reported in an incorrect way as for citizenship, which artificially caused an enormous increase in the number of hospitalised foreigners. Along with a transition to a new information system within the NHIS united technological platform, rules for reporting foreigners were made stricter in 2019. The National Register of Hospitalised Patients (unlike the “V (MZ) 1-0” report) measures care regardless the way of payment and only for patients hospitalised on a bed, while the report measures both the out-patient and in-patient care, however, only the one, which is not paid from the public health insurance. Although both the cases apply to care provided in hospitals in the Czech Republic, the mentioned numbers of foreigners in both the data sources are incomparable due to those reasons. They only overlap as for drawing of in-patient health care by foreigners paid outside the public health insurance. 

Abortions in female foreigners

Data on abortions in female foreigners come from the National Register of Reproduction Health - Abortions. All types of abortions made in health establishments of the CR have to be reported on the form “Application for Induced Abortion - Report of Abortion and Ectopic Pregnancy”. This report is compulsory and both are liable to it: Czech nationals – females with permanent residence in the territory of the CR as well as female foreigners regardless of the type and length of their stay. Data on abortions are published only as for female foreigners with a permanent or a long-term residence in the territory of the CR.

Newly notified TB cases in the CR by the patient’s country of birth

The table gives the number of newly notified cases of tuberculosis (TB) in the CR broken down by the country of birth of patients (not necessarily foreigners).

Chapter on the health care for foreigners in the Czech Republic has been published since 2010 with a more narrow scope than in the preceding years. It applies to omission deletion of the former first Table T61 Health insurance contracts of foreigners.

The data are provided for health sector as a whole. Until and including 2002, only data for the Ministry of Health were provided in the tables.