Have you been forced to leave your permanent home and move to another region? Did your family doctor or pediatrician stay where you used to live? Was your child born in your new place of residence? These are exactly the situations that people with internally displaced person status find themselves in.
Regardless of their place of residence or registration, they can receive the full scope of medical care.
Since medical care is not tied to the place of registration or residence, an internally displaced person can freely choose a family doctor, general practitioner or pediatrician to sign a declaration with at any healthcare facility. Here is how to do it.
1. Choose a doctor First, choose the nearest or most conveniently located primary care facility. It can be a municipal or private facility, or a doctor working as a sole proprietor, that has a contract with the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU). You can find them using the analytics panel (dashboard) Electronic map of primary care locations. Use the filters to quickly get the information you need about a facility:
- town or village;
- type of ownership (municipal or private, sole proprietor);
- doctors' specialty (family doctor, general practitioner, pediatrician);
- the doctor's full name, if you know a specific doctor and want to check whether you can sign a declaration with them.
After you select the filters, the dashboard will show information about the facility:
- the facility's address, working hours and contacts
- details of each primary care doctor: surname, first name and patronymic, and the number of declarations the doctor already has.
The declaration limit is 1,800 for a family doctor, 2,000 for a general practitioner and 900 for a pediatrician. If a doctor has reached the limit, they decide at their own discretion whether to sign declarations above it. If the doctor has not reached the limit, they cannot refuse to sign a declaration.
Another way to find a primary care doctor is to call the NHSU contact center at 16-77. The operator will help you over the phone to find the nearest primary care facility and a list of doctors who are accepting declarations. The operator will give you the facility's address, contacts and working hours. Call the facility and make an appointment with the doctor to sign a declaration.
Signing a declaration is free of charge at both municipal and private facilities. Demanding money for signing a declaration or payment for the first visit is unlawful. Likewise, there are no limits on the number of visits to the doctor or on referrals.
2. What you need to sign a declaration To sign a declaration, make an appointment with the doctor you have chosen.
You can do this through the facility's registration desk.
The patient needs to bring to the appointment:
- passport
- taxpayer identification number
- the child's birth certificate — if the declaration is signed with a pediatrician or if the family doctor will see the child
- a phone to receive text messages from the electronic health care system (eHealth), including a text with a confirmation code for your choice of doctor.
To sign the declaration, a member of the facility's staff will enter your details into the electronic system. You will receive a text message with a confirmation code on your mobile phone.
After that, the doctor will print out the declaration with your details. Check carefully that all the details are correct. If necessary, the staff member will make changes in the system and print the declaration again. Sign two copies of the printed declaration. You take one with you, and the other stays at the facility.
If you already have a declaration with another doctor, you do not need to do anything with it. Signing a new declaration is automatically recorded in eHealth and at the same time cancels the previous one.
3. Use the benefits of a declaration with a doctor
With a declaration with a primary care doctor, a patient with internally displaced person status receives free services for the diagnosis and prevention of the most common diseases, advice on a healthy lifestyle, e-referrals to specialists, e-prescriptions for medicines and vaccinations according to the immunization schedule, and can obtain medical certificates, sick leave certificates, etc.
The Program of Medical Guarantees gives all Ukrainians the same free list of medical services and equal access to them, regardless of internally displaced person status. Learn more about the free medical services available under the Program of Medical Guarantees in the e-guide “Patient's Guide to the Program of Medical Guarantees 2024”. You can download the guide via this link.