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From October 2, 2025, patients under Cyprus’s General Health System (GESY) will see a major change in how requests for medical treatment abroad are handled. The Health Insurance Organization (HIO) announced Thursday that it will now take over the process of approving and managing these cases.
The move aims to streamline requests for patients who need care not available in Cyprus, whether due to a lack of specialists, missing equipment, or treatments that cannot be provided locally within a medically reasonable time.
Under the new system, only specialist doctors can submit applications through the GHS online platform. Patients themselves cannot file requests directly. Once submitted, cases will be reviewed by expert panels and categorized by urgency:
- Normal cases will be reviewed within 15 days.
- Urgent cases within four days.
- Life-threatening cases within 24 hours.
Treatments that are experimental, unproven, or already completed before an application is filed will not be covered. Certain services, including specialized lab tests, prosthetic limbs, and ocular prostheses, will continue to be handled by the Ministry of Health’s Subsidized Patients Sector.
To guide patients, the HIO has published a list of cooperating hospitals abroad on its website. If a preferred hospital from the list accepts Cyprus’s European S2 funding form, costs will be covered in full. If not, patients may face partial charges, though the HIO says a zero-cost option will always be provided.
Patients and their doctors can also request treatment at hospitals outside the official list, but in such cases the burden of arranging logistics falls on the patient. Depending on whether the hospital accepts the S2 form, patients may have to pay upfront and then seek reimbursement.
Exceptions will be made for rare diseases, specialized reference centers abroad, or cases where patients are already receiving follow-up treatment in the same foreign hospital.
The HIO stressed that it will cover only medical costs and, if necessary, the patient’s transportation. Other expenses, such as those of companions, will not be reimbursed.
Officials say the change is meant to bring more order and transparency to a process that has long frustrated patients needing life-saving care abroad.
