Although hospitals admit that there is some room for maneuver when it comes to current prices they remain concerned about how to cover the resulting budget shortfall. Profits from laboratory services have been used to finance other medical services that are significantly in deficit, including intensive care and anesthesiology.

Thanks to technological advances, laboratory services have become significantly cheaper, with the Health Insurance Fund therefore deciding to cut funding by 15 percent from the start of 2026.

" According to our calculations, this means a loss of around €5.5 million for the clinic. The Health Insurance Fund has promised that the amount our revenue will decrease is to be compensated for through other price changes. At the moment, there has been talk of emergency room prices and additional funding for existing on-call services," said Priit Perens, board chair of Tartu University Hospital.

More than a quarter of the clinic's analyses are performed at the request of family doctors, which, according to Perens, came as a surprise to the Health Insurance Fund. It therefore remains unknown whether these cuts will be compensated for in any way.

At the same time, intensive care and anesthesiology services are in currently running at a considerable deficit, as their prices have not initially been brought into line with the necessary costs. According to the Health Insurance Fund, the planned savings amount to €24 million.

"The €24 million comes purely from the impact of the maximum prices for laboratory services, which we deduct from the prices of services using a minus sign. The increase in emergency room prices, the increase in pathology prices, which affects the cost model of family medicine –we are directing roughly the same amount of additional funds there. All in all, this change will be more or less cost-neutral," said Liis Kruus, head of the Health Insurance Fund's healthcare services development portfolio.

For Synlab, the 15 percent cut in laboratory prices means a loss of €4 million.

"We are still adjusting to this information, because the new price list has only recently been introduced. We knew about this information earlier, but are still discussing exactly what we will do, how we will act, and what opportunities we see for savings," said Kaido Beljaev, member of Synlab Estonia's management board.

At the beginning of the year, the Health Insurance Fund also planned to cut radiology prices, though that has now been postponed until next spring. Radiology is one of the profitable services that keeps other services, such as the intensive care unit and operating theater at Kuressaare Hospital, running.

"Today, we know that the result of the laboratory price cut will be zero. But we have absolutely no idea what will happen to radiology. Radiology has a much greater impact on ensuring the sustainability of the hospital than the laboratory," said Märt Kõlli, director of Kuressaare Hospital.

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