Health care insurance and medical assistance
In Poland, medical assistance is offered in public and private health care facilities. In both types of facilities you could receive free basic healthcare benefits. In order to be eligible for free basic health care benefits, first you need to become insured with the National Health Fund (NHF). Please, keep in mind that, in order to offer free basic healthcare benefits to an individual insured with the NHF, the health care facility needs to have a signed agreement with the NHF. Otherwise, the health care benefits are “fee for service.”
Free basic healthcare benefits – please, keep in mind that not all benefits are free of charged even for individuals insured with the NHF or in healthcare facilities that have a signed agreement with the NHF. The NHF provides only the basic health care benefits free of charged. Also, “free” does not mean that the healthcare benefit is not paid for in one way or another. In this context “free” refers to the fact that an individual insured with the NHF do not have to pay a fee for the received medical service at the spot.
Everyone employed in Poland - including foreigners - is required to have health care insurance. This means that every month a premium is deducted from an employee’s paycheck towards the National Health Fund – the government institution financing health care coverage. Also, the employee’s closest family members – spouse, children, and certain members of extended family - can be eligible for free basic health care benefits if they are not obligated to receive or purchase health care coverage individually for any other reason.
Additionally, in Poland healthcare coverage is always provided for:
children; unemployed who are registered with the Unemployment Services; foreign- asylum seekers, foreigners granted temporary protection, refugees and persons under the additional protection and the integration programme in cooperation with the Care Educational Center, as well as prisoners and people held in custody.
Individuals, who did not purchase their coverage through NHF, are still eligible for medical assistance; however, unless covered by a private insurance plan, they will need to pay “fee for service”.
For more detailed information on health care system please refer to taps on this page.
Important vocabulary:
Insured (Ubezpieczony) – an individual insured with NHF or any other health care insurance program.
Medical Care Provider (Świadczeniodawca) – health care facility (e.g. hospital, health centre), doctor, dentist etc. who provide health care services and have an agreement with the NHF.
Medical Care Recipient (Świadczeniobiorca) – an individual eligible to receive health care benefits financed from the NHF (this also includes her/his family members covered under the same plan).
