Health Care Division
Health care providers, such as health care providers subsidized under the Dutch Act on Exceptional Medical Expenses (AWBZ), hospitals, and rehabilitation centers, are considered undertakings. This also applies to organizations such as health insurers, and medical-equipment manufacturers. The Dutch Competition Act applies to all of these organizations. They are not allowed to conclude any agreements that impede competition, and they are not allowed to abuse their dominant positions.
Division manager:
 | Name: Judith van Tartwijk
Phone: +31-70-330-1306
(NMa Information and Tip-Off Line,
Monday through Friday, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.)
Email: info@nma.nl |
Competition is increasingly being introduced in the health care industry as well. Hospitals have been given more freedom with the introduction of the so-called Diagnosis Treatment Combinations (DTCs). Health care providers, too, have to comply with competition rules! Those rules are not for nothing. Patients enjoy higher quality of health care because of them, and they stimulate innovation. If you have any indications that market participants do not play by the rules, please let us know. You can contact us by calling or sending an email to the NMa Information and Tip-Off Line. We follow every lead, and are able to deal with every violation.
The NMa has put much effort in educating the industry in recent years, because competition therein was still a new phenomenon. Since several years now, the NMa has increasingly attached education to regulatory enforcement. I can therefore wholeheartedly recommend all health care undertakings to read our guidelines and brochures.
Examples
More information?
Cooperation
Pharmacy and Free Medical Professions Division
The Health Care Division closely cooperates with the Pharmacy and Free Medical Professions Division. In some submarkets, the activities of both divisions are closely aligned with one another. For example, the Pharmacy and Free Medical Professions Division enforces oversight on independent medical specialists in hospitals, while the Health Care Division enforces oversight on hospital-employed medical specialists.
Dutch Healthcare Authority (NZa)
The NMa and the NZa work closely together. The NMa reviews health care concentrations, and it enforces the prohibition of cartels. In addition, the NMa comes into action in cases of abuse of dominance. The NZa also plays a role here: it can impose obligations on health care providers or health insurers, if they enjoy dominant positions, in order to prevent abuse thereof.
So the NMa enforces the rules when abuse has been established, whereas the NZa is able to prevent abuse from occurring in the first place. In addition, the NZa sets rules, budgets and tariffs for the regulated segments of the health care market, and it sets conditions for those segments of the market that are fully or partially being liberalized.
