With the new Law on Healthcare (hereinafter: the Law ) that entered into force in April 2019, certain novelties have been introduced. One of the most notable changes that apply to all healthcare facilities is that from now on, healthcare facilities will be registered at the Business Registers Agency (hereinafter: the BRA ), starting from October 11, 2020.
However, besides the new procedure of founding healthcare facilities , the existing healthcare facilities shall submit their registration applications in order to transfer to the new register, and also modify their acts so as to make this transfer successful. Continue reading to find out which modifications are to be made by the existing healthcare facilities.
CHANGING THE NAME
The Law has specifically prescribed in what manner a certain healthcare activity is performed, ie what shall be the names of particular healthcare facilities. Namely, the general name “healthcare facility”, which has so far referred to different companies, activities, or levels of healthcare protection, cannot be used in the names of all healthcare companies anymore. For example, pharmacies shall change their name to “pharmaceutical facility”. Also, the new Law prescribes the possibility to translate the names.
THE CHANGE OF THE GOVERNING BODY
With the previous Law, identical rules have been prescribed for the authorities who govern the healthcare facilities that are publicly or privately owned. Now, the Law is explicit in the sense of the governing authorities of publicly or privately-owned companies while regulations of the Companies Law are applied to the privately-owned facilities. Therefore, now, there is an obvious difference in the manner of organizing and governing publicly and privately owned facilities.
THE CHANGING OF THE FOUNDER
A healthcare facility can either be publicly or privately owned. Still, the New Law specifically determines who can be the founder of a publicly owned healthcare, depending on the facility in question. Thus, certain healthcare facilities shall change their founder in order to coordinate their business with the new regulation.
THE ENTRY OF THE COORDINATION INTO THE NEW REGISTER OF HEALTHCARE FACILITIES
All of these changes shall be enforced in the founder’s act and the company’s bylaw, so in the legally prescribed procedure, it is necessary to make changes to these acts and register them in the new competent register.
Until January 11, 2021, The Business Registers Agency shall, without compensation, enter these changes in order to coordinate the healthcare facilities with the current regulations. However, the healthcare facilities which do not coordinate their business by January 11, 2021, shall pay compensation to the BRA for the late entry.
Although the new law requires the passing of several bylaws, many of those haven’t been passed yet. However, since the practice has shown that the BRA is extremely prompt and organized with records that they keep, we believe that this kind of a change of governance in the keeping of registers of healthcare facilities will turn out to be a positive change.
