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Especially in summer, the cities of art and the coast are crowded with tourists. It is not uncommon for someone to end up in an emergency room: except that if EU citizens have the right to assistance as in their own country, then by law tourists from outside Europe should pay a regional tariff according to the treatment they receive. Unfortunately, many do not do this: “The region warns that at least half of people in Tuscany do not pay their bills by payment order or bank transfer, and once they leave it is impossible to recover this money”. That is why the region is studying a resolution to force tourists to pay before returning home.
Ideas to freeze amount on credit card
In Tuscany, the areas with a higher influx of non-EU foreign tourists in emergency rooms are Florence, Pisa and some hospitals along the coast. The idea is to provide mechanisms guaranteeing compulsory payment for services provided by the Tuscan regional health system: one of the assumptions is to block a sum on the tourist’s credit card as a deductible for any service. The fee that the tourist (not a foreigner with a residence permit or a foreigner temporarily present) will be asked to provide is the sum of the regional rate for the individual service received, the daily flat rate for short-term intensive observation hospitalization, if necessary, and any subsequent costs of hospitalization in the ward. Treatment and hospitalization for infectious diseases are not only about personal health, but also about collective prevention as foreseen by the World Health Organization.
The decision only applies to non-EU tourists
The resolution being developed in the Tuscany Region is expected to serve as a pioneer for other regions by the end of this month: in fact, the health authorities have been instructed to introduce procedures to collect these amounts in a more certain way than they do now. Payments for health services provided to foreign visitors (not stateless persons) who are from outside the EU or EEA, who are not citizens of Switzerland or certain countries with which Italy has mutual assistance relations. National law already requires everyone to pay reimbursement for services provided. However, today only a portion of people pay this amount: in Tuscany, for example, about half. By then, the procedures and charges will also be standardized between the various local health authorities.
Giani: “Additional resources for staff and emergency rooms”
“Being at Santa Maria Novella in Florence is like being at the coast – explains the President of the Tuscany Region Eugenio Gianni – A lot of tourists crowd the emergency rooms. The intervention is simple: just as today if we go to the United States we know that we must buy health insurance to avoid the not insignificant costs of hospitalization in the emergency room, so it is right for foreigners coming to Italy from non-European countries to do the same, on the basis of reciprocity”. “The additional resources we will collect can be used to provide fair remuneration for emergency room staff and, given the substantial ineffectiveness of the government decree, also to reduce waiting lists”, adds Gianni.
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