So that patients benefit from price security, doctors and health insurance companies enter into agreements which establish, amongst other things, the fees for health services. Doctors are free to adhere to this agreement.
The approved doctor, that is to say having adhered to this agreement, is committed to respecting the rates set when the patient stays in a double or shared room.
You can check your doctor’s status on the INAMI website.
No doctor, whether approved or not, may charge additional fees to patients hospitalised in a shared or two-bed room.
If you have chosen a private room for reasons of personal convenience, supplements may be billed to you by the doctor, whether or not (s)he is approved.
This principle has a few exceptions:
- when the patient's state of health or the technical conditions of examination, treatment or monitoring require a stay in a single room,
- when the department’s requirements or the unavailability of beds in a double room or in a shared room result in a stay in a single room,
- when admission takes place in an intensive care or an emergency care unit, irrespective of the patient's wishes and for the duration of their stay in this unit,
- when the admission concerns a child accompanied by a parent during their stay in hospital and the parent has not signed any document expressly requesting a particular room
Find out about this well in advance in the admission report which the hospital must provide you.