The key requirements submitted by the Dental Chamber depend on decisions by the Ministries of Finance and Health, the Health Insurance Fund (FZO) said, adding that a significant number of dental practices have already concluded contracts with the Fund.
The Dental Chamber previously announced that citizens of Montenegro, who were entitled to free dental care, do not have that service as of today, because negotiations with the Health Insurance Fund have not yielded results.
In response, the Health Insurance Fund stated that in recent months, the Fund organized a series of meetings with representatives of the Dental Chamber and the Ministry of Finance, at which methods of paying for dental services and financing models were discussed within the funds allocated by the Ministry of Finance for dental health care this year.
As the Fund pointed out, two key requests submitted by the Dental Chamber, relating to a new model of financing dental health care and an increase in funds for this year, depend on the position of the Ministry of Finance.
"Given this fact and depending on the final decisions regarding the model and method of financing dental health care, the Health Insurance Fund will proceed with their further implementation as soon as possible," the response states.
The Health Insurance Fund explained that one of the proposals that was jointly considered was a change in the way emergency preparedness functions within dental health care at the primary level.
They emphasized that the aforementioned issue can be improved and resolved in a quality manner exclusively through the reform of dental health care that the Ministry of Health announced for the beginning of next year.
"Since it is necessary to wait for the decisions of the Ministry of Finance and Health and their inclusion in the entire process to resolve the key requests of the Dental Chamber, the Fund has not proposed contracts that would bring about the implementation of requests that have not been sufficiently analyzed and fully agreed upon by all relevant factors in the healthcare system," the HIF stated.
As they added, the goal is to improve existing contracts already this year, after harmonizing the views of all decision-makers.
The Health Insurance Fund said that, as of today, a significant number of dental practices have concluded contracts with the Fund, thus demonstrating a high level of responsibility towards citizens.
"After the contract signing process is completed in the coming days, the Fund will promptly inform the public in which dental offices insured persons will be able to exercise their rights to dental health care in the coming period," the statement said.
The Health Insurance Fund said that, guided by the desire to provide the best possible health services to insured persons and the best possible working conditions for dentists, they remain open to any form of cooperation with the Dental Chamber and other relevant institutions dealing with this issue.
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