NUR-SULTAN – The Social Health Insurance Fund has allocated 73.7 billion tenge (US$172 million) worth of supplementary payments for doctors on the frontlines of coronavirus since the pandemic outbreak in March, according to the press service of the fund. This month, more than 66,000 medical workers will receive supplementary payments for August.
Photo credit: Baigenews.kz.
The list of medical workers now includes doctors and nurses who work in mobile emergency teams, ambulance workers providing primary health care and people working in military medical facilities, forensic departments and other central government bodies and departments.
The fund made changes to the guaranteed volume of medical care and compulsory health insurance related to the treatment of COVID-19. These changes will provide access to healthcare services for socially significant diseases regardless of the status of an insurance plan as doctors prepare for the second wave in the fall.
“Mobile groups and hospitals will provide services for all patients with COVID-19 and in cases with suspected COVID-19 regardless of the status of insurance. The guaranteed medical care package provides services on self-isolating of contact persons, asymptomatic virus carriers and persons with suspected infectious disease,” said Chairman of the Board of the Social Health Insurance Fund Bolat Tokezhanov at the Sept. 24 briefing in the Kazakh capital.
The fund will also allocate 159 billion tenge (US$371 million) to fight COVID-19 and pneumonia. It includes the treatment of patients, supplementary payments for medical workers involved in anti-epidemiological activities, COVID-19 testing, hospital services at home and funding for the activities of mobile groups.
From March to July, more than 500,000 COVID-19 tests worth 5.6 billion tenge (US$13 million) were conducted. The mobile groups conducted 43,000 home visits during July. The plan going forward is to conduct about 2 million more COVID-19 tests including about 600,000 tests in hospitals, and more than 1.4 million tests on an outpatient basis by the end of the year.
Tokezhanov said that people who have had coronavirus and moderate and severe pneumonia will also be able to undergo rehabilitation as part of the insurance plan.
