In 2018, health care providers from other European countries submitted invoices to the Estonian Health Insurance Fund for the health services of Estonian insured persons or Estonian pensioners and workers temporarily staying there for nearly 10 million euros, which is nearly 40% more than a year earlier. The number of Estonian patients in other European countries has been the highest in Finland, followed by Germany.
Overall, people insured in Estonia received treatment in 30 European countries. While health care services were the most widely used in Germany in 2015 and 2016, then in 2017 and 2018 the majority of medical bills came from Finland.
The data exclude data provided under scheduled treatment or directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare, which, in addition to the 10 million mentioned above, represent about another 10 million euros.
In turn, nearly 7,000 insured people from European countries used Estonian health care services per year, and this size has remained stable over the past four years. The people who were insured in Finland received the most treatment in Estonia – there were over 4,000 of them.
The data are published in the Health Statistics and Health Research Database of the National Institute for Health Development.
See the vizualized data here of treatment cases of insured people in Estonia from European countries.