| Verified against primary record | |
| Prior authorisation requests (2023) | 1 received, 0 authorised, 1 refused[1] |
|---|---|
| Reimbursement requests (2023) | 12,049 received, 12,431 granted, 948 refused[1] |
| Average authorisation processing time | 30 days, equal to Poland’s own legal limit[1] |
| Conversion to the Regulations route | Permitted, with a right of objection; no conversions occurred in 2023[1] |
| National contact point | National Health Fund[2] |
| Independently reported | |
| EU patients using the Directive each year | About 200,000, under 0.05 per cent of EU citizens[3] |
| Bands apply only to the rows beneath them. More requests were granted than received, which the Commission reports as a grant rate above 100 per cent; this arises because requests can be decided in a later year than the one in which they arrive, so the figures are not a within-year balance. All counts are claims by Polish insured persons for care obtained abroad and are not a count of foreign patients treated in Poland. No typical cost range is given because no official Polish source publishes prices paid by foreign patients. | |
Medical tourism in Poland is recorded almost entirely as outbound activity, and in a form that shows how little the prior authorisation machinery is used. For reference year 2023 Poland received a single request for prior authorisation, refused it, and separately processed 12,049 requests for reimbursement of care not subject to authorisation. No official Polish count of foreign patients treated in Poland was located for this article.
One authorisation request
Poland reported one prior authorisation request in reference year 2023, which was refused. Against 12,049 reimbursement requests on the unauthorised route, that makes the authorisation system effectively dormant in practice, whatever its formal scope.[1]
There is a procedural reason why authorisation requests may not surface as such. The Commission records that where a request meets the conditions of the social security coordination rules, the National Health Fund may grant it under those rules instead, with beneficiaries able to object to that treatment of their application. It also records that no such conversions occurred in 2023.[1]
Poland’s average processing time for authorisation requests was 30 days, exactly equal to its own legal limit, a coincidence that follows naturally from having decided only one case.[1]
A grant rate above 100 per cent
On the reimbursement route Poland received 12,049 requests, granted 12,431 and refused 948. More claims were granted than arrived, which the Commission expresses as a grant rate of 103.2 per cent.[1]
This is not an error in the Polish return. The report warns generally that authorised and refused counts do not always equal the number received, because a request can be processed in a later year than the one in which it was made. Poland’s figures are the clearest illustration of that effect in the collection, and they are a useful caution against computing approval rates from these tables as though each year were self-contained.[1]
Poland’s reimbursement volume is among the largest reported, behind France and Germany and below Slovakia. The Commission names the movement from Poland to Czechia among the busiest reimbursement flows in the Union, and records that patient mobility mostly involves neighbouring countries.[1]
The framework
Poland’s designated national contact point for cross-border healthcare is the National Health Fund, the body that also administers the claims.[2]
Under Directive 2011/24/EU the member state of affiliation must reimburse cross-border care where the treatment is among the benefits it covers domestically, capped at the level of costs it would have assumed and not exceeding the actual cost received. Prior authorisation may be required only for care subject to planning requirements involving an overnight hospital stay or highly specialised and cost-intensive infrastructure, for treatments carrying a particular risk, and for providers raising serious quality or safety concerns.[5]
Eurostat separately maintains a collection of hospital discharges of non-residents, with tables for in-patients, day cases, bed days and average length of stay, reporting country of residence where member states can supply it. Individual cell values for Poland were not retrievable for this article.[4]
For scale, the European Court of Auditors estimated about 200,000 patients a year using the Directive across the Union, fewer than 0.05 per cent of EU citizens, with prior authorisation applying in around 1 per cent of cases.[3]
Limits of the evidence
Nothing here measures foreign patients treated in Poland, and no official Polish figure for that direction was located. The reimbursement counts are claims rather than people, and because decisions can fall in a later year the within-year arithmetic does not close. Privately funded treatment of foreign patients, which includes the dental and cosmetic work Poland is commercially known for, appears in none of these sources and has not been estimated.
See also
- Medical tourism in Czechia, the destination of one of Poland’s busiest flows
- Medical tourism statistics, and why a grant rate can exceed 100 per cent
- Outbound medical tourism, the direction Poland’s data records
- Dental tourism, a privately funded flow absent from these figures
- Cross-border healthcare, the framework producing the Polish figures
References
- European Commission, Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety. Data on cross-border patient healthcare following Directive 2011/24/EU, reference year 2023. 15 May 2025. Verified against primary record: the report was opened and the Polish rows for prior authorisation and reimbursement including the grant rate above 100 per cent, the 30-day average processing time matching the legal limit, the provision allowing the National Health Fund to grant requests under the coordination rules with a right of objection and the record of no conversions in 2023, the naming of the Poland to Czechia reimbursement flow, and the general caveat that requests may be decided in a later year were read directly. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- United Kingdom government publishing service. EEA countries and contact points. Verified against primary record: the list was opened and the designation of the National Health Fund as Poland’s national contact point was read directly. The document does not state a publication date, which is recorded here as a limitation. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- European Court of Auditors. Special Report 07/2019: EU actions for cross-border healthcare. 2019. Verified against primary record: the report was opened and the annual patient estimate, the share of citizens and the share of cases requiring prior authorisation were read. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- Eurostat. Hospital discharges and length of stay for inpatient and curative care (hlth_hosd), reference metadata. Last updated 15 December 2025. Verified against primary record: the metadata page was opened and the non-resident definition, the statement that country of residence is reported, and the list of non-resident tables were read. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- European Parliament and Council. Directive 2011/24/EU, Chapter III, Articles 7 and 8. 9 March 2011. Verified against primary record: the chapter text was opened and the reimbursement rule in Article 7 and the three permitted grounds for prior authorisation in Article 8(2) were read. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
Sourcing note: this entry uses only official sources. The grant rate above 100 per cent is reported as the Commission reports it, with the reason given, rather than silently corrected or recalculated. No approval rate has been derived from these tables as though each year were self-contained. No official Polish count of foreign patients treated in Poland was located, and no figure has been estimated for privately funded treatment.