Waiting lists: examinations and visits also on Saturdays and Sundays, analyses in pharmacies

A single regional and infra-regional Cup, a platform for monitoring times, the possibility of purchasing services from private facilities, and the extension of opening hours for visits and examinations on Saturdays and Sundays. The service pharmacy is also launched, with the possibility of having analyses and tests done by pharmacists. The expenditure ceiling on the hiring of doctors and nurses is also relaxed, which will be definitively passed in 2025 (in its place there will be standard requirements). These are some of the urgent measures contained in Minister Orazio Schillaci's draft decree-law to cut waiting lists expected in the council of ministers on 3 June.

"Diagnostic and specialist examinations can be carried out on Saturdays and Sundays, and the time slot for the provision of such services can be extended," reads one of the 24 articles of the draft decree on waiting lists that is expected to land in the council of ministers on 3 June. As Health Minister Orazio Schillaci himself anticipated at the Festival of Economy, in the event that the visit or examination cannot be guaranteed at the hospital because it is overbooked, it will be possible to turn to the private sector to obtain treatment free of charge (or by paying the co-pay fee if you are not exempt): 'For the provision of outpatient specialist services, local health authorities shall provide health services to their patients also through the offer of hospital companies as well as accredited private providers. With the ASLs having to provide 'at least 90 per cent of the services within the maximum timeframe for each priority class'. Also included in the decree is the widening of the so-called pharmacy of services envisaged in the simplification bill: the measures envisage the possibility of having more and more examinations and analyses at the pharmacist's in addition to all vaccinations.

Agenas, the Agency for Regional Health Services, will be responsible for national monitoring of compliance with maximum waiting times 'by priority classes of services booked under the institutional regime and under the intramoenia freelance regime'. And then, in order to 'govern waiting lists', the 'National Waiting List Platform' is created, aimed at achieving interoperability with the platforms for waiting lists relating to each region and autonomous province'. Not only that: in order to cut queues, the unification of public and private agendas at the CUP will also be implemented, as the draft decree itself explains: 'Public providers and accredited private hospital and outpatient providers will refer to the Single Reservation Centre (CUP), which will be a single regional or infra-regional centre. Private facilities that do not adhere to the single CUP will lose the possibility of contracting with the National Health Service. The decree also envisages an increase in the expenditure ceilings for recourse to the private sector.

In order to avoid the phenomenon of 'no-show' patients, i.e. those who book a service at the Cup and then do not turn up for the appointment, a 'Recall' system will be activated by the Cup 'to remind the patient of the date of the service, to request confirmation or to cancel bookings, to be made at least two working days before the service is to be provided'. If the patient does not show up on the scheduled day, "without justified cancellation, except in cases of force majeure and unforeseen impossibility, he/she may be required to pay the public or accredited private provider the ordinary cost-sharing fee established by the regulations in force on the date of the appointment, for the service booked and not used, to the extent provided for patients in the lowest income bracket". In practice, one will still have to pay the co-pay fee, if applicable.