Health care in Poland

Poland has a one-payer system with the state insurance agency called ZUS. One needs to register with ZUS to get the benefits. If you are employed at a company with more than 20 employees this is done through your employer. If your company has less than 20 employees (which was my case) the procedure is a little bit more complicated. You have to prepare the following documents:

1. A picture like for passport
2. A copy of the National ID card
3. A copy of spouse’s National ID card
4. A copy of marriage certificate
5. Copies of children’s birth certificates
6. Filled in Forms E-22 and E-22a, can be downloaded from ZUS website

Copies 2-5 are stamped by the employer that has to see the originals  to compare. The employer issues one additional document confirming the employment. All this needs to be brought to an appriopriate ZUS office so that it can issue the insurance cards. This takes about two weeks. During that time one can register at a family doctor’s practice and use the services based on the employment document.

So far my experiences with health care in Poland have been positive. I got conjuctivitis (pink eye) one Monday morning. My wife called the doctor’s office at 8 a.m, got an appointment for me at 9. We had chosen a family practitioner in the neigborhood, walking distance from our apartment (we still don’t have our car). I was seen at 9:15, got a prescription and bought the medicines before 10. There was no copayment for the doctor visit, but I had to pay about 50% (I think) for the medicines.

School age children are automatically insured in Poland no matter if the parents have gone through the process described above. My daughter got an ear infection one Saturday before we had a doctor. My wife first tried to find a private doctor (outside of the ZUS system ), but it turned out that the correct thing to do was to call number 555 and find out where in town there is an ENT specialist on duty that day. She got an appointment in about two hours and that was it.

ZUS costs 9% of salary before tax. This is calculated for practically all payments from your employer, including, to my surprise, things like relocation cost reimbursement. With the income tax (no deduction for relocation costs as well) this means that if your employer promises you the reimbursement of the relocation costs it really means that you will get back about 60-70% of what you spend.