Healthcare in Hungary

Hungary has a tax-funded universal healthcare system, organized by the state-owned National Health Insurance Fund (Hungarian: Nemzeti Egészségbiztosítási Alapkezelő (NEAK)).

The first modern insurer was established in 1907, named Országos Munkásbetegsegélyező és Balesetbiztosító Pénztár ("National Workers' Sick-benefit and Accident Fund").

The first steps to overall health insurance took place in the Horthy era with the creation of Országos Társadalombiztosítási Intézet (lit.

[8] The free-market shift initiated after the end of communist rule in 1989-1990 put a strain on the largely centralized, wholly tax-funded public health system, which required far-reaching reforms.

[10] The OEP, predominantly based on a social insurance system,[9] is the public organization currently controlling the management of health care in Hungary.

[10] Because of past hiring policies, Hungarian hospitals often have redundancies of doctors, and a lack of nurses, resulting in an unproductive misuse of human resources.

[9] According to the survey conducted by the Euro health consumer index in 2015 Hungary was among the European countries in which unofficial payments to doctors were reported most commonly.

Air ambulance bases (in Budaörs, Balatonfüred, Sármellék, Pécs, Szentes, Debrecen, Miskolc) cover the whole country.

All national and county hospitals have heliports, including the specialized and most professional university clinics and emergency centers in Budapest, Pécs, Szeged, and Debrecen.