(English) How to get Access to “convenio especial” scheme

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We at Salvador Tax & Legal would like to inform you of the possibility of access to the public health system for foreign residents in Spain, who do not qualify under any other means.

It is necessary for those people to make a Special Agreement with the Andalucia Health Service, upon payment of a monthly fee and providing certain criteria, detailed below, is met, you will have access to the public health system.

The law 16/2003, dated 28th May, on the cohesion and quality of the National Health System, Article 3.5 establishes the possibility that residents who do not qualify as members of the Health System can have access to it by means of a subscription or payment. 

As a development of the aforementioned law, the Royal Decree 576/2013 establishes the basic requirements necessary to access the public health system through Special Agreement, these are:

1. To prove residence in Spain for a continued period of a minimum of one year immediately prior to the date of application for the special agreement, and not being eligible to access the system.
2. To be registered as a resident, at the time of the presentation of the application to the special agreement, in any municipality that has the subscription to this agreement within its area of responsibility.
3. To not have access to a public health sytem by any other means, whether that is by application of national regulations, community regulations in terms of Social Security or bilateral agreements regarding this matter, subscribed to by Spain and other countries.

If these three requirements are met, it is possible to subscribe to the afrorementioned Special Agreement which will allow access to the services of the National Health System, this includes all services of prevention, diagnostics, treatment and rehabilitation that are carried out in medical or public health centres, as well as urgent medical transport.

For these services, the subscriber must pay a monthly amount:

1. If the subscriber is less than 65: a monthly payment of 60 euros.

b)   If the subscriber is over  65: the monthly payment is 157 euros.

The autonomous communities can increase this amount when more services are introduced into the Special Agreement.

Not withstanding the above, each case must be studied individually to ensure that the applicant meets the requirements and is able to subscribe to the Special Agreement.

Alejandro Guerrero Salvador