European health insurers move towards digital coordination

On September 6, 2023, the European Commission passed an initiative to speed up the digitalization of EU social security systems coordination. The goal is to make access to social security “faster and simpler across borders,” according to Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights.

Currently, national institutions, healthcare providers and labor inspection services face difficulties in accessing and sharing data. In particular, they come up against a lack of interoperability between the computer systems managing various member-State social security schemes.

The Commission is thus calling on the 27 to speed up implementation of the Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information (EESSI) at national level. The latter is a digital communication and medical file exchange platform. Its infrastructure complies with European norms, making the different national EESSIs interoperable.

The Commission also aims to better digitalize social security coordination procedures and make them entirely available online. European citizens will therefore have easier and quicker access to the services they are entitled to, even outside their country of origin.

Finally, the European executive branch is calling for a speedy rollout of European digital identity wallets, to simplify the use of the European health insurance card’s e-version.