But with the green code do you pay for tickets and tests in the emergency room?
The cost of the ticket for access to the emergency room is not the same in all regions. But at least on the colors that determine the severity of the patient and establish the payment or not, the law is the same from North to South. However, strange and inexplicable things happen like having a green code and having to pay almost 100 euros. This is what happens in Emilia Romagna…
If you enter the emergency room, and – fortunately – you are neither a red nor yellow code, in addition to not knowing how many hours you will have to spend there, you don't even know what expenses you are facing. This is what the journalist Filippo Merli told on ItaliaOggi , whose partner, after fearing a heart attack and going to an emergency room in Emilia Romagna, where they gave her a green code, left there 8 hours later with a ticket of 92 euros to be paid on the same day.
How is it possible? One of the many items reported in the long list given to the woman is the payment foreseen for access to the emergency room (25 euros) which, according to what can be read on the Ministry of Health website "varies regionally", but only applies to cases with code white.
Then follow all the tests (not requested but obviously necessary) ranging from the most expensive such as chest X-rays (18.60 euros) and electrocardiograms (12.50 euros) to an infinite series of other items. Without forgetting the 34 euros of analyzes to check the troponin.
So does a green code pay or don't pay in the emergency room?
WHEN YOU PAY THE FIRST AID TICKET
"The ticket, introduced in Italy since 1982 – recalls the Ministry of Health – represents the way, identified by law, with which the assisted contribute or 'participate' in the cost of the health services they use".
With regard to the emergency room, "the law provides for the payment of a co-payment (the amount of which varies regionally) for services provided in the hospital emergency room classified with a 'white' code (non-urgent services, patients in non-critical conditions with the exception of and acute poisonings) not followed by hospitalization".
AN EXCEPTIONAL CASE
An exceptional case (and it is not that of the protagonist of the mishap in the emergency room!) occurs when the patient enters with a code of another color and exits with the 'white' one if, after being examined, no urgency is found.
At that point, the ticket must be paid because the type of code assigned at the time of resignation and not the one received upon admission counts.
But the lady at the center of the case that happened in Piacenza came out with the same code – green – with which she had entered the emergency room.
WHEN THE FIRST AID TICKET IS NOT PAID
For the ministry, on the other hand, minors under the age of 14 and assisted persons who enjoy exemption are excluded from the payment.
Furthermore, “the ticket is not foreseen for services provided to patients to whom the following have been assigned: 'red' code (very critical patient); Code 'yellow' (average critical patient); Code 'green' (uncritical patient)”.
There is no mention of the 'blue' code, added in 2021, but it is one of those for which the ticket is not paid as it is between 'green' and 'orange'.
THE PRICE LIST OF WHITE CODES IN THE REGIONS
In a 2015 article in Quotidiano Sanità which had collected data from the various regions, we read that the tickets on the white codes generally cost 25 euros, with some exceptions. In the autonomous province of Bolzano, for example, 50 euros are asked.
"In many regions (Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, PA Bolzano, Liguria, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Puglia, Calabria) – observes the newspaper – in addition to paying the fixed fee, a share of the cost is required for any laboratory diagnostic services, instrumental or other therapies provided in conjunction with the visit to the Emergency Department. And the costs in these cases can rise up to a maximum of 100 euros”.
HOW MUCH CITIZENS CONTRIBUTE WITH THE PAYMENT OF THE TICKET
A study by the Observatory of Italian Public Accounts (CPI) reports that "in Italy the sharing of citizens in the expenditure linked to health care tickets was approximately 2.7 billion in 2020". The trend in recent years "has been rather constant, but spending on tickets has dropped by 682 million in 2020".
This decrease, explains the Observatory, is mostly due "to fewer specialist visits and examinations during the pandemic and to the abolition of the Superticket in the last quarter of the year", but also "to lower drug consumption (-95 million), the slowdown in white-coded entrances to the Emergency Department (-18 million euros) and other lower expenses (-3 million)”, again due to the Covid-19 emergency.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/ma-col-codice-verde-si-pagano-ticket-e-analisi-al-pronto-soccorso/ on Fri, 24 Feb 2023 12:37:18 +0000.