State Duma Proposes Reducing Review Times for Healthcare Requests
State Duma Vice Speaker Irina Yarovaya has proposed legislating maximum waiting periods for planned medical care, aiming to cut them from the current 30 days to «just a few days.» The deputy also emphasized the need to accelerate the review of applications for telemedicine consultations. In response, the Russian Ministry of Health has assured «Kommersant» that Health Minister Mikhail Murashko has already instructed national medical research centers to respond to telemedicine consultation requests within strictly defined timeframes—ranging from two hours to seven days. However, the standard review period for other citizen appeals can still extend up to 30 days.
Photo: Anatoly Zhdanov, Kommersant
Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum on September 4, State Duma Vice Speaker Irina Yarovaya highlighted the urgency of speeding up the process for telemedicine consultation (TMC) applications. She suggested that emergency TMC requests should be processed within two hours, urgent ones within 24 hours, and planned consultations within a week. According to Ms. Yarovaya, the maximum processing times for citizen appeals regarding medical assistance—especially concerning hospitalization, oncology, and emergency cases—should be enshrined in federal law and significantly reduced from the current 30 days to a matter of days.
Currently, these deadlines are governed by the Program of State Guarantees for Free Medical Care to Citizens. According to current regulations, emergency care must be provided immediately and without hindrance at any time of day. For urgent care (in cases of sudden acute illnesses and exacerbations of chronic conditions without immediate threat to life), a home visit request for a doctor must also be accepted and forwarded to a medical organization immediately.
A doctor should arrive within two hours of the call.
Appointments with a general practitioner or pediatrician should be scheduled on the day of the request. Waiting times for specialists (such as a cardiologist or neurologist) should not exceed 14 calendar days from the date of referral. Diagnostic procedures (e.g., ultrasound, MRI, lab tests) should also be completed within 14 calendar days after being prescribed by a doctor. For planned medical care, including surgeries and hospitalizations, the waiting period should not exceed 30 days from the date of referral. All official citizen appeals concerning medical aid (such as complaints or requests for assistance with hospitalization) are processed according to the general rules of the federal law «On the Procedure for Considering Appeals from Citizens of the Russian Federation,» which sets a standard 30-day review period for all types of appeals, including medical ones.
Until recently, the deadlines for telemedicine consultations were determined by the internal regulations of medical organizations and telemedicine service rules. Alexey Kuznetsov, Assistant to the Minister of Health, informed «Kommersant» that in mid-August, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko instructed the heads of national medical research centers to ensure that consultations (medical councils) using telemedicine technologies are conducted within strict deadlines upon receiving requests from regional medical organizations: up to two hours for emergency consultations, up to 24 hours for urgent consultations, up to three working days for planned consultations involving suspected oncological diseases, and up to seven working days for all other planned cases.
The Ministry of Health has yet to comment on Irina Yarovaya`s proposal to legally mandate shorter response times for citizen appeals.
Yury Zhulev, co-chairman of the All-Russian Patients` Union, supports Irina Yarovaya`s initiative, stating that a 30-day review period for appeals concerning hospitalization or medical care is «unacceptably long» for patients. Maria Posadkova, head of the legal service for the Podsolnukh Foundation for children and adults with immunodeficiencies, added: «For a patient in a severe condition, whether it`s seven days or thirty, it essentially doesn`t matter. They need a decision on their case to be made immediately.» In her view, the problem could be resolved by creating unified digital routing systems where appeals are not sent to a general email inbox but directly to the office of a specific responsible employee.
Regarding telemedicine, Ms. Posadkova confirmed that an «extraordinary procedure» for obtaining such consultations is already in place. «However, in practice, we often encounter doctors refusing such consultations, citing system malfunction or inability to use it,» the expert explained. She also noted that the implementation of telemedicine is hampered by a lack of trained personnel: «Doctors have not been widely trained in new digital competencies, and their current work schedules often simply do not allocate time for telemedicine consultations.»
