Medical specialist appointments during lockdown

If you have already made an appointment with a medical specialist:

If you still need to see a medical specialist, then EHIF has sent a guide to healthcare institutions asking them to contact the patient no later than two days before the scheduled appointment. However, each healthcare institution organizes their work as they see fit.  A healthcare institution has three options:

1. First, provide a remote appointment over phone or video call. Remote appointments are carried out in all specialties and EHIF pays for them.
2. Secondly, the doctor will still have the right and opportunity to invite the patient to the appointment in person according to their state of health. To do this, the patient or their family members must not have any virus symptoms in order to protect their own health and their doctor. 
3. Thirdly, the doctor or healthcare institution can postpone the appointment If an appointment is postponed, the healthcare institution (if possible) recommends that the patient be given a new appointment immediately or that the patient be contacted and given a new appointment when the emergency situation subsides and new appointment times (doctors' schedules) are available again. When new medical specialist appointment times open, they are given first to the patients whose appointments were postponed during lockdown.

If you need to see a medical specialist during lockdown:

1. Contact your family physician as he/she is your first contact in case of health concerns.
2. The family physician, in turn, has several options how to act. First of all, he/she can communicate with the patient, identify the patient’s health concerns and, in most cases, help the patient without referring him/her to a medical specialist.
3. If the family physician has additional questions to the specialist, he/she can have an e-consultation, which is covered by EHIF. E-consultation is currently available in 23 specialties.
4. If a medical specialist and a family physician find it necessary for the patient to see a specialist, the medical specialist who conducted the e-consultation can take over the treatment.
5. Then, given the nature of the patient's health concerns, the specialist will decide whether he/she will invite the patient to the appointment in person or conduct a remote appointment.