Patient Mobility Directive: One Step Forward Or Two Steps Back For Cross-Border Healthcare?

Abstract:

The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted on 9 March 2011 the Directive on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare. This Directive emerged as a result of the Court of Justice’s jurisprudence on social security coverage of healthcare obtained outside the Member State where the patient has social security protection. The aim of this paper is to investigate the Directive and determine whether it will add (once transposed into national legal systems) to the current set of patient entitlements and make it easier for patients to obtain socially covered healthcare outside the state of social protection, and to discuss the Directive’s application in Croatia once the country joins the EU. The paper analyses the Patient Mobility Directive by focusing on the issue of whether the Directive actually contributes to patient mobility in the EU and also its relationship with national social security legislation, especially in Croatia. The paper argues that the Patient Mobility Directive’s impact on the actual movement of patients across borders might prove to be counterproductive in some areas, due to its limiting certain entitlements to access socially covered healthcare abroad. On the other hand, the Directive will also add to some patients’ entitlements in accessing healthcare abroad and improve (from the patients’ point of view) certain aspects of the overall framework for obtaining cross-border healthcare. Therefore, the Directive’s impact in terms of facilitating patients’ ability to obtain socially covered healthcare outside the Member State of social protection remains ambivalent.