Mediation in the healthcare sector

Remit

The National Health Information and Mediation Service (Service national d’information et de médiation dans le domaine de la santé) provides information, advice and mediation for the prevention and resolution of disputes between healthcare providers and patients. The service is free. It is open to both patients and healthcare professionals.

Informing patients and healthcare providers

The service’s primary purpose is to provide patients and healthcare providers with information, with a view to preventing potential disputes from arising between them.

Anyone can obtain information about patients' rights and responsibilities, as provided for in the Law of 24 July 2014. All patients enjoy a number of basic rights, which include the right to freely choose a healthcare provider, the right to kept informed, the right to have their wishes taken into account, the right to designate a trusted person or an accompanying adult, and the right to up-to-date medical records that they can access.

The service also provides general information about Luxembourg’s healthcare system and how it is organised, and about the healthcare providers who are authorised to operate in Luxembourg.

Lastly, the service is also the national point of contact for cases involving cross-border healthcare that is provided in close collaboration with the CNS, which covers the reimbursement of cross-border healthcare costs.

Complaint resolution 

To mitigate the risk of complaints, the healthcare mediator seeks, first and foremost, to promote communication between patients and healthcare providers. To achieve this, they implement a number of preventive measures.

Should difficulties arise, the role of the healthcare mediator and its staff is to listen to the parties involved, and help them resolve their dispute themselves, in a spirit of dialogue and mutual understanding.

The healthcare mediator is a neutral, independent and impartial third party. Their role is not that of a judge. Their role is to help restore dialogue between the parties, using a structured process.

The parties always have the last say in their dispute. The mediator's role is to help the parties settle the matter amicably, which presupposes that both parties are willing to reach an agreement.

All of the parties involved – the healthcare mediator, their staff and the disputing parties – are bound by an obligation of confidentiality. The confidentiality of the process is guaranteed by law.

The Service

The team

The service is staffed by a small team of three people. IF need be, they may engage the services of external experts.

• Mike Schwebag, Healthcare Mediator
• Maïté Poos, Lawyer in Health Law
• Marie-Jeanne Dias Pinto, Secretariat