Long-Term Care Financing in Belgium

Peter Willemé, Joanna Geerts, Bea Cantillon and Ninke Mussche
Additional contact information
Joanna Geerts: Federal Planning Bureau
Bea Cantillon: University of Antwerp
Ninke Mussche: University of Antwerp

Chapter 16 in Financing Long-Term Care in Europe, 2012, pp 300-321 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Long-term care (LTC) in Belgium consists of a wide range of benefits in cash and in kind, organized at the federal, regional and municipal levels, and is related to health and social service provision.1 The bulk of LTC services are provided as part of the federal public compulsory health insurance system, which is financed by social security contributions and general taxes. The main actors in the management of the system are the federal parliament (issuing the main laws governing the system), the Ministries of Health and Social Affairs, the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (NIHDI) and the sickness funds, which serve as intermediaries between the administration, the providers and the patients. Since public health insurance covers practically the whole population, LTC coverage is also nearly universal. However, since LTC services provided through the health insurance system cover only nursing care (as well as paramedical and rehabilitation care) and part of personal care to dependent persons, a whole range of services is organized and provided at the regional and local level. Indeed, while there is no specific LTC legislation at the federal level, the regional governments have issued decrees that regulate a wide range of issues related to LTC services: certification of facilities such as nursing homes and day care centres, integration and coordination of services at the local level, quality monitoring systems and so on.

Keywords: Home Care; Informal Care; Residential Care; Elderly Home; Home Care Service (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-34919-3_16

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230349193

DOI: 10.1057/9780230349193_16

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().