Since 01.04.2012 material changes in the healthcare sector – the Health service Act becomes effective

On 01.04.2012 the Act No. 372/2011 Sb., on health services, as amended, became effective; the Act changes the medical law materially (hereinafter referred to as the “Act”). From the point of view of the physicians running their private medical practice, the defined obligation to ask for issuing the licence for rendering medical services – the so called re-registration (from 01.04. 2012 till 31.12. 20102) – is one of the most important changes defied by the Act. The written application incl. the mandatory annexes have to be delivered within 31.12. 2012 (i.e. it is not enough to send/mail the application within this term) to the Health Department of the locally competent Regional Authority in the territory of which the physician runs its consulting room (medical practice).

Healthcare providers (a new term “healthcare provider” following from the Act) who fail to submit the application within the term as above, can run their medical practice on the basis of the existing registration to run the private health facility only till 31.03. 2015 and since 01.04. 2015 the existing registration will cease to exist directly from the Act. Therefore we recommend not to wait with the re-registration and not to leave submission of the application for granting the licence to render health services to the last minute.