page_title: Healthcare in Italy
section_title: National Health Service
hierarchical_section_title: Healthcare in Italy / National Health Service
caption_attribution_description: English: This image depicts total health expenditure as a percentage of GDP from 2005 to 2008 for France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. An 'OECD Health Data 2010' report is used for the information, which is available here.
context_page_description: Healthcare spending in Italy accounted for 9.2% of GDP in 2012, slightly lower than the average of 9.3% in
  OECD countries. About 77% of the spending is public.
  In 2000, Italy's healthcare system was regarded, by World Health Organization's ranking, as the 2nd best in the world after France, and according to the World Health Organization, Italy has the world's 6th highest life expectancy. The life expectancy at birth in Italy was 82.3 years in 2012, which is over two years above the OECD average.
context_section_description: The National Health Service was created in 1978.
  Healthcare is provided to all citizens and residents by a mixed public-private system. The public part is the national health service, Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (SSN), which is organized under the Ministry of Health and is administered on a regional basis.
  Family doctors are entirely paid by the SSN, must offer visiting time at least five days a week and have a limit of 1500 patients. Patients can choose and change their GP, subjected to availability.
  Prescription drugs can be acquired only if prescribed by a doctor. If prescribed by the family doctor, they are generally subsidized, requiring only a copay that depends on the medicine type and on the patient income (in many regions all the prescribed drugs are free for the poor). Over-the-counter drugs are paid out-of-pocket. Both prescription and over-the-counter drugs can only be sold in specialized shops (farmacia).  In a sample of 13 developed countries, Italy was sixth in its population weighted usage of medication in 14 classes in 2009 and fifth in 2013. The drugs studied were selected on the basis that the conditions treated had a high incidence, prevalence and/or mortality, caused significant long-term morbidity and incurred high levels of expenditure and significant developments in prevention or treatment had been made in the last 10 years. The study noted considerable difficulties in cross-border comparison of medication use.
  Visits by specialist doctors or diagnostic tests are provided by the public hospitals or by private ones with contracts to provide services through the national health service, and if prescribed by the family doctor require only a copay (of the order of $40 for a visit without any diagnostic test) and are free for the poor. Waiting times are usually up to a few months in the big public facilities and up to a few weeks in the small private facilities with contracts to provide services through the national health service, though the referring doctor can shorten the waiting times of the more urgent cases by prioritising them.
caption: Total health spending as a percentage of GDP in Italy compared with other developed nations in the period 2005-2008.
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