What is the Patient Insurance Centre?
The Patient Insurance Centre handles all the notices of patient injury concerning medical treatment and health care in Finland. The Patient Insurance Centre decides based on the legislation related to patient injuries whether an injury is a compensable patient injury. It also pays the compensation in accordance with legislation for those entitled to compensation.
The Patient Insurance Centre safeguards patients and health professionals and produces information on patient injuries for the use of healthcare providers, insurance companies and patient safety work. Its members include all insurance companies granting patient insurance policies in Finland.
The Patient Insurance Centre is part of the Insurance Centre, the other member of which are the Motor Insurers’ Centre, the Environmental Insurance Centre and the Pharmaceutical Insurance Pool. This cooperation enables the efficient use of resources and the optimisation of operating processes between the four types of insurance, thus ensuring the achievement of synergy benefits.
Duties of the Patient Insurance Centre
The Finnish Patient Insurance Centre is the joint body for the implementation and development of the patient insurance system. Its duties are laid down in the Patient Insurance Act, according to which the Patient Insurance Centre:
- Handles all compensations under patient insurance and ensures compensation practices are uniform.
- Compensates injuries that occur during insurance policy validity periods on behalf of insurance companies that grant patient insurance policies.
- Compensates injuries that occur when a medical professional provides urgent care to patient with an acute medical issue, or that occur in connection with medical treatment provided by a medical professional who has neglected their duty to take out a patient insurance policy.
- Creates statistics on accidents, insurance policies, policyholders, patient injuries and compensations for the purpose of preventing patient injuries and the enforcement and development of legislation.
- Compiles statistics on patient injuries and reports on insurance policies, patient injuries, and compensations paid according to a classification based on the risk classification.
- Provides insurance companies with historical insurance data for the provision of insurance policies.
- Confirms the amount of the expenses of the pay-as-you-go system and the insurance company specific pay-as-you-go amounts.
- Submits proposals to the State Treasury for the imposition of fees corresponding to the insurance premiums and a penalty fee to parties that have neglected their duty to take out an insurance policy and invoices and collects the fees imposed.
The Patient Insurance Centre may also:
- Report all risks to patient safety that it becomes aware of to the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health Valvira, the Regional State Administrative Agency and the Finnish Medicines Agency Fimea.
- Take care of other tasks that promote the enforcement and development of legislation on patient insurance or prevention of patient injuries.
Injuries that occurred between 1 May 1987 and 30 April 1999 fall under the original Patient Injuries Act. Injuries arising from medical treatment and healthcare given on 1 May 1999 or after that time are examined on the basis of the revised Act.
The Patient Injuries Act will be replaced by the Patient Insurance Act on 1 January 2021. We have compiled information about the essential changes on our website.
Patient Insurance Centre funding: cash flow and technical provisions
The cash flow of the Patient Insurance Centre consists of the following:
- The Patient Insurance Centre produces the calculations and manages the insurance settlements to insurance companies (safety loading and expenses). Each insurer is responsible for its share of the total liability.
- The Patient Insurance Centre pays the compensation to the injured party.
- The Patient Insurance Centre collects the paid compensation, expenses (Patient Insurance Centre and the insurers) and the safety loading (2% of the previous ones) from the hospital district.
The technical provisions of the Patient Insurance Centre are formed as follows:
- The Patient Insurance Centre produces the calculations and manages the insurance settlements to insurance companies (promissory note and the corresponding liability). Each insurer is responsible for its share of the total liability.
- The Patient Insurance Centre assesses the liability, i.e. the compensation and expenses to be paid in the future for already occurred patient injuries.
- The Patient Insurance Centre asks the hospital district to issue a promissory note with no interest corresponding to the liability and the 2 % safety loading added to it.
Financing model of the Patient Insurance Centre (PDF, opens in a new tab, in Finnish)