- The Ticino government has set an upper limit for the approval of doctors working in the outpatient sector.
- The approval stop should help to reduce health costs, as Ticino’s head of health Raffaele De Rosa explained.
- The registration stop applies from November 1, 2023.
Those affected include anesthesiology, cardiology, oncology and plastic surgery. However, general internal medicine, general practitioners, pediatrics, psychiatry and child and adolescent psychotherapy are excluded from the approval freeze.
Outpatient care accounts for 40 percent of healthcare costs
In the affected medical specialties, the level of care in Ticino is too high, explained the Ticino head of health and social affairs, Raffaele De Rosa, to the media. In the areas mentioned it is over 120 percent. There are also exceptions to the new regulation, De Rosa explained. For example, if health care is inadequate in a certain region.
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Basel-Stadt and Baselland have already slowed the registration of new doctors in eight specialist areas due to “strikingly large oversupply”.
KEYSTONE / Christian Beutler
The outpatient medical sector accounts for 40 percent of healthcare costs in Ticino, continued De Rosa. These costs would have to be reduced with all our might, especially since they would increase from year to year.
Cantons determine the number of doctors
Ticino is considered one of the cantons with the highest healthcare costs. For 2024, the southern canton recorded the most significant increase in premiums at 10.5 percent. Since July 2021, the cantons have been able to determine for themselves which medical specialties or regions they want to limit the number of doctors by setting so-called maximum numbers.
In Switzerland, the two Basel cantons were the first cantons to implement the new federal requirements. After the Baselland Cantonal Court lifted the licensing ban for outpatient doctors at the beginning of the year, the two governments had to consult on new legal bases for outpatient licensing management.