Public patients to receive informative healthcare 'bills'

The Madrid regional government wants its citizens to know that public healthcare is free of charge, but also that it costs money. That is why it is about to start handing out token healthcare bills informing patients of the cost of their treatments.

From Wednesday patients undergoing major surgery in the outpatients' department of the capital's La Paz Hospital will start to carry away the invoices, with the scheme rolling out to outpatients' departments at other Madrid health centers in October.

Regional premier Esperanza Aguirre first announced she was planning to introduce the informative bills during her investiture speech in June. The Madrid health department plans to gradually expand the scheme across the system in the coming months. In December overnight patients will also begin to receive bills, with some primary attention patients set to receive invoices next year, as well as documents relating to emergency room services use.

Asked about the cost-benefit ratio of the scheme, health department chief Javier Fernández-Lasquetty said 250,000 euros had been spent on software to implement the system. The price of handing out the bills would be "that of a sheet of paper," he added, while that of sending them would be the "cost of the postage."