The Italian Court of Auditors has approved the Decree of the Prime Minister on new Essential Levels of Services (LEA)

The Italian Court of Auditors approved the Decree of the Prime Minister on new Essential Levels of Service (LEAs) in the Italian health system. The new LEAs update the national positive list of healthcare basket benefits defined in term of standards and services of care which are mandatory for provision. The reform introduces important news in the field of public health and vaccination, reviews the list of inappropriate DRG for in-patient care (that is, those DRGs that are presumed to be potentially inappropriate when delivered in the context of normal hospitalizations and shall be preferably moved to the one-day case setting) and, most importantly, updates the national nomenclature of out-patient care and the Nomenclature of Aids and Prostheses for disabled.

Approval by the Court of Auditors gives the green light to the publication of the Decree in the Italian Official Journal. Nevertheless, there will be some important and further steps required for proper implementation of the reform. In particular, the new Commission for LEA at the Ministry of Health will have to elaborate the proposal to substitute the old regulation and implement new LEAs. This proposal will have to be adopted by the Ministry of Health by the 15th of March. Afterwards, modalities of provision of disposable medical aids and prostheses, and tariffs for the nomenclature of medical aids and for the nomenclature of out-patient services will be identified.