A resident of Izhevsk contacted the editor and told her story about how she was refused a referral for a free MRI examination in one of the public hospitals, suggesting that she go to a private clinic.

The woman came for a consultation with an orthopedic traumatologist with the results of an ultrasound of her joints and an X-ray. The doctor ordered an MRI, sending her to a certain private clinic, where the cost of the study was 4-4.5 thousand rubles. It was difficult for the pensioner to allocate such an amount, given the additional costs of medicine.

The patient did not ask the doctor at the clinic about the possibility of waiting for a free quota, considering the chances of receiving it in the near future to be almost zero. In her request to the Ministry of Health, the Izhevsk resident is interested in the principles of allocating quotas for CT and MRI in public medical institutions.

In response from the “Acting Minister of Health of the Urals” Alsou Ishniyazova it is clarified that the scope of diagnostic studies, including CT and MRI, is determined by the standards of the Territorial Program of State Guarantees of Free Medical Care. These programs are approved annually within the framework of allocated funding, and the volumes are determined for the assigned population.

Ishniyazova noted that increasing quotas is possible only with the allocation of additional funds from the Territorial Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund. As for sending a patient for an MRI to a private clinic, this, according to her, is legal according to the routing approved by the ministry.

Having learned about this answer, the patient was indignant, pointing out that the clinic to which she was referred does not work under the compulsory medical insurance system and did not provide any discounts, reports udm-info.ru.