The Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO) generated 1 billion kuna more in legally mandated social contributions "this summer compared to last year," and HZZO director Lucian Vukelic said on Monday that the fund has settled its debts and is paying its liabilities to pharmacies "within 95 days."

HZZO told Hina on Monday that in the three summer months – June, July and August, it had collected almost 6.8 billion kuna in healthcare contributions, or 1 billion kuna more than last year.

“As far as HZZO payments to pharmacies and wholesale drug suppliers are concerned, the situation now is good and there is no critical debt,” Vukelic said ahead of a conference on cohesion funds for equal access to healthcare.

“HZZO is currently paying pharmacies for prescription drugs within approximately 95 days. This is a default of about a month behind the legal deadline of 60 days,” he added. HZZO’s debt to pharmacies amounted to 1.7 billion kuna a year ago, and at that time it was agreed with the Ministry of Finance and wholesalers that payment terms would be reduced to 120 days.

“This means that we have now settled our debts, because it was a good season and we have seen better contribution payments,” Vukelic said.

(€1 = 7.52 kuna)