While the national level has been promising a convenient system for booking doctor's appointments for years, Slovak regions took the initiative and successfully implemented their own project. The system objednatvysetrenie.sk has become a real lifesaver for millions of patients, allowing them to book a specialist visit for free and without tiresome phone calls.
The pilot project started in the Trnava region, where the local government covered the costs for the software and its updates. The main advantage of the system is that it is completely free for both patients and doctors. To date, over 7 million appointments have been made through the service, and more than 650 clinics across almost the entire country are connected to the network.
The registration process is as simple as possible:
patients only need to provide their name and phone number;
confirmation is sent via SMS message;
doctors decide for themselves what percentage of appointments they are willing to open for online booking.
Currently, the system is actively functioning in the Trnava, Trenčín, Banská Bystrica, Žilina, and Prešov regions. Not only private doctors but also large hospitals have started joining the platform. In particular, in Žilina, Trenčín, and Trnava, patients can now book complex diagnostic procedures online, such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), sonography, and X-ray.
The success of the regional initiative has not gone unnoticed at the government level. The Minister of Health, Kamil Šaško, acknowledged that self-government is ahead of the state in many matters and confirmed plans to turn this service into a single national system. For their part, the association of regions plans to invite other regions that do not yet use this software to join the project.
For doctors, the system has also been a relief, as it significantly reduces daily administrative work and frees them from having to answer dozens of emails after appointments.
