IDF outsources treatment of career soldiers to health funds

The move comes after “10 committees” were set up to look at changes, and after “six months of [bureaucratic] approvals."

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Updated: MARCH 11, 2016 04:59
A soldier on patrol looks toward Ramallah in 2001 (photo credit: BRIAN HENDLER)
A soldier on patrol looks toward Ramallah in 2001
(photo credit: BRIAN HENDLER)
The IDF Medical Corps will outsource all medical treatment for career soldiers to public health funds by 2017, a senior military source said this week.
The move is part of restructuring program aimed at “improving the quality of health care for all career soldiers, in the field and in the home front, and mainly, for conscripted soldiers,” the source said.
Medical Corps care at a range of military facilities will henceforth focus on conscripted soldiers.
The move comes after “10 committees” were set up to look at changes, and after “six months of [bureaucratic] approvals,” the officer said.
It “make available resources that enable us to provide more services for the conscripted soldiers,” he added.
Until now, conscripted soldiers went to public health fund facilities for initial checks, then received referrals to IDF facilities for follow-up treatments. Many conscripted soldiers would get lost in the system, the source said.
“We are going to redirect medical resources from career to conscripted soldiers. Career soldiers consumed 20 percent of our expertise and medicines, and the same percentage of initial medical care services. This will now go to conscripted soldiers,” the officer said.
Additionally, while some career soldiers had until now gone to military facilities for care, others went to the civilian health services, depending on their location, resulting in unequal provision of medical services.
The source acknowledged the move represents a certain risk, as career soldiers could “suddenly receive all sorts of instructions from public health funds that they are not used to getting.”