Responding to a parliamentary question, Romain Schneider (LSAP) said there had been a seasonal increase in demands for refunds at the Caisse Nationale de Santé (CNS). This, combined with posts left empty following retirement, longer sickness benefits, large-scale projects and enquiries about delayed payments, has led to lengthy delays.

“The health insurance fund is in the process of reorganizing itself in order to address this delay,” Schneider said.

Among the changes are an optical reader system to allow a higher volume of invoices to be processed.

The department for payments in the illness and maternity (PN) department has trained 15 new staff and hired three temporary staff, who are in training.

During the first quarter of 2021, the CNS is expected to launch a digital processing unit, that is supposed to reduce manual processing of documents.

“This digital device will enable the insured person to use mobile applications with which they can manage fees, health insurance and prescriptions. This will speed up and simplify the reimbursement procedure,” the minister wrote.