Upcoming legal challenges for cross-border e-health services in the EU

Rūta Janeckaitė

doi:10.15388/os.law.2020.8

Abstract

The paper briefly describes the current EU legal framework in the healthcare field and assess to which extent it could apply to the provision of cross border eHealth services. In particular, it analyses the provision of such services from the free movement angle, i.e. whether EU law guarantees to health professionals access to and exercise of activiti es in the 3rd type of situations, as well as whether the insured persons have the right to reimbursement of costs of such healthcare from their social security system.

Highlights

There are essentially three categories of situations, which fall under the scope of the fundamental freedom to provide services.The situation explicitly foreseen in Article 56 TFEU is where providers are moving to another Member State to provide their services on a temporary and occasional basis
In addition to the free movement provisions in the TFEU, in the 1st type of situations, the PQD and the PTD apply in the healthcare field
Neither the PQD, nor the SSCRs apply in the 3rd type of the situations, i.e. where healthcare services are provided via information and communications technology (ICT) across a border

Summary

INTRODUCTION

There are essentially three categories of situations, which fall under the scope of the fundamental freedom to provide services. The paper will briefly describe the current EU legal framework in the healthcare field and assess to which extent it could apply to the provision of cross-border eHealth services. It will analyse the provision of such services from the free movement angle, i.e. whether EU law guarantees to health professionals access to and exercise of activities in the 3rd type of situations, as well as whether the insured persons have the right to reimbursement of costs of such healthcare from their social security system. CURRENT EU LEGAL FRAMEWORK CONCERNING CROSS-BORDER PROVISION OF HEALTHCARE SERVICES

The free movement for health professionals

The free movement for patients

The definition of eHealth services

Reimbursement of costs of cross-border telemedicine services

Professional-to-professional cross-border telemedicine services

CONCLUSIONS