Private healthcare more popular than national in Hungary

Five facts about the problems with Hungarian national healthcare: The situation is getting worse quickly, says Forbes.hu.

“Is it blooming? It is booming!” as Forber wrote a year ago, based on the data about private healthcare services from 2014. According to the most recent survey of Szinapszis Market Research, the market increased significantly between 2014 and 2016, and the reputation of national healthcare fell greatly. They drew five (plus one) main consequences from the survey among people from Budapest.

1. Even the doctors doubt that patients are safe

Let us begin with the most surprising data: only 21 percent of the doctors thought that their patients were among safe circumstances during the last hospital or clinical treatment. It is not because the doctors did not do all they could for their safety, but they could not guarantee it because of the state of national healthcare.

Laic patients were much more optimistic, a greater number of them (55%) claimed that they felt totally safe during their treatment.

2. If I must pay anyway, I rather do it privately and not in the form of gratuities

At least this is the attitude that is reflected in the survey according to the question concerning private services. The waiting lines are long in the state system, and gratuities are needed to be paid for the proper treatment, but private services are worth their extra payment. The only problem is that while we pay the private doctor we also have to pay the social-security contribution. However, the majority still agrees that they pay for the national health insurance funds in order to avoid paying twice elsewhere.

3. Almost half of the patients are disappointed with the information services

The information about diseases and therapies, the waiting time, the time spent with the treatment are all issues with which patients are less satisfied in the case of national healthcare. The situation has been already poor two years ago, but decay is significant on all fronts. For example, only 42 percent of the patients are satisfied with the time spent with the treatment in national healthcare. No wonder that it is one of the main reasons why so many people choose private services. The survey also revealed that patients would expect 24 minutes of the doctor’s time per patient, and almost every second patient feels that they do not get this from national healthcare. It is an important aspect especially among young people (18-35).