The place of telemedicine in the public health insurance system
The provision of health care at a distance is not defined in the law, and this whole area of health care is therefore unanchored from a regulatory point of view, and in practice the spontaneous development of the provision of tele-medical health care occurs. What are the impacts of remote health care delivery on health care availability? What are the regulatory limitations and options for setting the regulatory framework in the future? Presentation of the "use-case" from practice, which is currently being implemented by Union health insurance company.
Telemedicine in Slovakia is getting its first comprehensive pilot for patients with chronic heart failure. It is being initiated by the insurer Union together with hospitals and the technology partner Goldman Systems. The aim is to genuinely improve patient outcomes while also opening a systemic discussion on how to integrate such services into routine practice. Telemedicine means providing healthcare remotely using telecommunication technologies; digital health is a broader category of using IT in health management. Today these terms are often conflated, which complicates rules as well as expectations. After COVID, services such as e‑mail or video consultations and repeat prescriptions were added, but it has become clear that mere “remote administration” without a clear clinical goal does not deliver systemic benefits. What’s missing above all are basic definitions and unified rules: what telemedicine is, what documentation should look like, data transfer between systems, and reimbursement for services. Without this, projects operate at the edge of regulation and providers are left guessing. Working groups of experts are therefore calling for legislative anchoring and the modernization of reimbursements so that telemedicine becomes part of standard care.Telemedicine is not just an “online consultation”
