National basic medical check-up concession, and its dismantling
Albania's Health Insurance Fund financed a free national check-up for adults aged 35 to 70 through a contract with private operators under the concessions and PPP law, and the programme carried out 454,828 check-ups in 2022 against 475,000 planned and 2,523,419 from 2015 to 2022; in July 2026 the Ministry of Health announced that the check-up service would pass under state administration.
454,828 check-ups, basic medical check-ups carried out nationwide, 2022. 475,000 check-ups, basic medical check-ups planned under the contract, 2022. Fondi i Sigurimit tรซ Detyrueshรซm tรซ Kujdesit Shรซndetรซsor (FSDKSH), reply to an information request on the Kontrolli Mjekรซsor Bazรซ programme, January 2024, retrieved 2026-10-17.
The move, and what it needed
The government wrote a national screening entitlement into a Council of Ministers decision and had the health insurance fund buy the service from private operators on a fixed planned volume, then took the service back under state administration in 2026.
Preconditions
- A single payer able to finance a fixed annual volume of check-ups
- Public primary care centres to recruit and see the patients
- Contract monitoring able to match payments to tests actually performed
Limits: The numbers sit in a PDF reply by the paying fund, which reports on a programme it finances, and they cover one year plus a cumulative total; the reply does not name the private operator. The PPP basis comes from a second official document, Council of Ministers decision no. 185 of 2 April 2014 as amended (fsdksh.gov.al), which tells the fund to contract the check-up with operators selected under law no. 125/2013 on concessions and public-private partnership. The end of the partnership comes from the Ministry of Health's July 2026 bulletin (shendetesia.gov.al), which states that check-up and dialysis services will pass under state administration, in the future tense and without a decision number or effective date; that the concession itself was revoked, and why, is reported by the press and not at an official URL. A reported state audit finding of payments for analyses never performed is press-only and is not used. The loss is the end of the joint delivery by decision, not a fall in screening volume: the state keeps the programme and widens it to every adult over 35, so the record documents a dismantled partnership, not a dismantled service. The check-up count is a count of visits, not of people screened once, and it says nothing about what share of the private payment bought delivered tests.