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Table 2 Overview of the key recommendations from the convention

From: Adapting the Israeli national health insurance law to the 21st century– a report from the 19th Dead Sea Conference

Regulation of the healthcare system

Improvement of the oversight of public hospitals by explicitly recognizing them in the NHIL and expanding the “regulatory arsenal” available to the MoH.

Reduction of the overall regulatory burden by promoting discussions between the MoH and regulated entities on planned regulatory directives and by deprecation of obsolete or irrelevant ones.

Improvement of the flow of information between the MoH and regulated entities by tunneling requests through a single point of contact in each organization and by creating automatic interfaces where possible.

Administration of medical services

Increasing accessibility to care by routinely measuring wait times, making the results public and enforcing improvement in cases where market forces fail to do so.

Promotion of transparency by informing the public about contracted service providers available to choose from.

Improvement of continuity and quality of care by transferring most of the services still provided directly by the MoH (the “Third Addition” to the NHIL) to the responsibility of the Sick Funds.

Expansion of preventive medicine services by transferring them to the responsibility of the Sick Funds and prioritizing additional services for inclusion in the mandatory Health Basket.

financial aspects of the healthcare system

Adapting the healthcare budget to realistic needs by periodic re-evaluation of budgetary indices and of the capitation formula and by switching to five-year budgetary agreements.

Reduction of rising healthcare costs attributable to the private health sector by improving the regulation of private health insurance and by considering reimbursement of the public sector by the private sector.

Exploration of additional mechanisms to limit the rise in physicians’ wages.

Curbing the spending on medication and medical technology by exploring novel initiatives such as pay-for-performance acquisition models or international collaboration for procurement of medications.

  1. NHIL National Health Insurance Law, MoH Ministry of Health