What’s new

The validity period of the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) will be extended to five years. This does not require any action from customers, as Kela will automatically renew EHIC cards at the end of their validity period. There may be a short break in the delivery of new cards. If you do not have an EHIC card, we recommend that you apply for it well in advance of your planned travel dates.

When seeking health services at a foreign clinic or hospital, ensure in advance that you are aware of matters related to patient safety. The Finnish national patient insurance only covers treatment provided in Finland.

The Contact Point for Cross-border Healthcare is currently planning a training package on cross-border healthcare. The training materials are primarily intended for professionals who, in their work, deal with matters related to cross-border healthcare. In the planning, we have taken into account the views of employees of wellbeing services counties and patient organisations.

EU-healthcare.fi will turn ten years old in October 2025. Over the last decade, the site has evolved and developed–always with the customer in mind. To mark the anniversary, let’s take a look at the history and development of the site.

The vocabulary of international healthcare can sometimes seem difficult. When you receive treatment in another EU country, it is important to be able to differentiate between a case of sudden illness and seeking treatment. In this article, we explain in more detail the difference between the two and what to do in each situation to get the necessary treatment.

You can choose to travel to another EU country for treatment and claim reimbursement from Kela retrospectively. When seeking treatment, it is important that you take into account things such as the meeting of the conditions for reimbursement, the transfer of patient information between countries, the ensuring of the quality of care and the possible need for further treatment.

Use of the Finnish ePrescription has once again been expanded in Europe. Lithuania is now participating in the service.

Our article series explains how the Contact Point for Cross-Border Healthcare collected information about customers seeking treatment abroad and how the results influenced the development of our services. In the last article of this story series, we review what concrete changes we made to our services on the basis of customer understanding work.

Our article series explains how the Contact Point for Cross-Border Healthcare collects information about customers seeking treatment abroad and how the results influence the development of our services. This part of the series looks at the results of our partner survey.

During the autumn, the Contact Point for Cross-Border Healthcare carried out user testings of the EU-healthcare.fi website with the objective of gathering information to support the development of the website and to obtain feedback and ideas from website users.