The health committee of Bulgaria's parliament held a first reading of six bills to amend the Health Insurance Act, but did not vote because it lacked a quorum. MPs will vote at the committee's next meeting.

Three of the bills come from Bozhidar Bozhanov and a group of MPs. The first says insured people can use their rights without the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) or its contractors asking for paper documents on facts that are available electronically. Health insurance booklets and other paper documents with data already held in electronic registers would be scrapped.

Under the same bill, every insured person would get an electronic notice for each medical or dental service and each medicine reported to the NHIF. The notices would also go to people who are parents, guardians or carers of an insured person. A bill by Asen Vasilev and a group of MPs would send a notice about the check-ups and tests of every insured person aged 14 or over.

Kostadin Angelov and a group of MPs also want the paper booklets scrapped. They would be replaced by an electronic health card, issued on a physical carrier and held electronically in the "eHealth" app and the National Health Information System. The bill also adds a public national register of free places in hospitals and clinics across the country, for medical specialists and trainee specialists.

Angelov's bill also changes two other laws. The Medicinal Products in Human Medicine Act would allow medicines to be used outside the terms of their marketing authorisation as prevention after a risky contact with an infection. The authors say there is currently no set procedure for antiretroviral drugs when medical staff have had a risky contact with people with certain infectious diseases. The changes to the Medical Establishments Act would let the state also subsidise multi-profile hospitals for active treatment in hard-to-reach or remote places, if there is no other facility of this type in the municipality.

Venko Sabrutev and a group of MPs propose that the state, not employers, pay health contributions during the two years of maternity leave. The state already pays them for students and pensioners. Companies could use the money they save for higher pay, expanding their business and creating new jobs.

Bozhanov's third bill targets corruption and abuse in health care. It aims to stop the draining of the fund, fictitious hospital admissions, unnecessary hospital beds, double payment for expensive medicines, leakage of medicines from the supply chain and excessively high prices for rare medicines. The NHIF would have to upload to the open data portal every month information on everything it paid in the previous month. The data covers activities, medicines, including those under Article 266a of the Medicinal Products in Human Medicine Act, medical devices and dietary foods for special medical purposes.

Members of the arbitration commissions that settle disputes between medical care providers and the fund would be chosen at random. Wholesale medicine traders would have to send the Bulgarian Drug Agency, every day by 23:59, data on the quantities delivered and on the individuals and legal entities that received them. The National Revenue Agency and the Customs Agency would get access to the medicine verification system, because the authors say it is needed for adequate control.

Bozhanov also proposes scrapping the post of second deputy governor of the NHIF. The authors say there is no clear enough need for two separate posts with a similar institutional status.