The switch to insurance medicine will start in 2017 and will last until 2020, the press service of Ukraine's Health Ministry has reported, referring to Deputy Minister Pavlo Kovtoniuk.

"The switch of the healthcare system to the insurance model will start in 2017 and it will last for three years. The transformation will begin from the launch of family medicine of the European model on the basis of the primary chain of the Ukrainian healthcare system (out-patient hospitals and ambulance clinics)," Kovtoniuk said.

He said that the introduction of insurance medicine would be accompanied minor changes to legislation.

"In the past 25 years 21 bills introducing insurance medicine have been drawn up. Many of them foresaw the creation of large bureaucratic structures or the redirection of budget fund flows into someone's pockets. The goal of our team is to start launching insurance medicine in practice in 2017. We have found a way to make it with minimum and clear changes to legislation," he said.

He said that during the reform Ukrainians will be free to choose a family doctor and a pediatrician for their children and sign direct agreements with them with the clearly defined volume of services guaranteed and paid by the state.

"If patients are not satisfied with the family doctor they could select another one. Family doctors will issue health statements for kindergartens, schools and swimming pools. The pegging to the place of residence is revoked," he said.

As part of the reform the ministry proposes to accelerate the medicine practice licensing, relax sanitary rules for launching medical practices and harmonize them with European legislation.

The reform does not foresee introduction of new taxes and fees.