Sweden

Accessing care

You are entitled to medically necessary treatment, when you are temporarily staying in Sweden. Medically necessary treatment usually refers to treatment that cannot wait for your return home. You may need such treatment in case of acute illness or accident. You can also receive treatment related to pregnancy and childbirth or to a chronic illness. The need for treatment must emerge during the course of your stay. You will receive treatment on the same terms and at the same price as the locals. If your illness requires regular treatment while you are temporarily staying abroad, contact the health care provider abroad in advance and agree on arranging the treatment.

The European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) is not required in the Nordic countries from people who are covered by the Finnish social security system. Therefore, showing your identity card and stating your current address is usually sufficient for receiving treatment in Sweden. An identity card can be a passport, or some other identity card issued by the police. Usually a driver’s licence is accepted as an identity card, but it is recommended to carry some other form of identity card with you to be sure.

If you do not have your identity card or driver’s licence with you, you might have to pay the full price of the treatment yourself. In this case, you can apply for reimbursement from Kela retrospectively.

When receiving necessary healthcare from the public healthcare system in Sweden, you will only be liable for the patient fee (patientavgift). Treatment is available for the price of the patient fee at health centres, public hospitals and those private health service providers (doctors, hospitals, clinics) that have made an agreement with Sweden’s county council. Municipalities and provinces determine the patient fees in their regions. Information concerning how patient fees are defined can be found in the 1177 online service (in Swedish).

If you seek treatment at an entirely private clinic that does not have an agreement with public health care, you will pay the full price for the treatment and will not receive reimbursement in Sweden.

Health centres are open on weekdays and reservations can be made by phone. Most health centres also have a walk-in reception during specific times. You can look for a healthcare service provider in the 1177 online service (in Swedish).

The information phone service is also available 24 hours a day and it can be reached by dialling 1177 (from Sweden) or +46 771 11 77 00 (when calling from outside of Sweden). You can also call this number to ask for the contact information of on-duty doctors.

Sudden illness

Doctor

In need of a doctor, you can contact a general practitioner (allmänläkare) at a health centre (vårdcentral) or clinic (läkarmottagning). Health centres also have nurses (distriktsköterska) who can treat wounds or prescribe medicine when the situation is not serious.

You can make an appointment with a specialist directly, but seeing a general practitioner first is advisable and cheaper. They can write a referral to a specialist if necessary.  A doctor’s referral is usually required for hospital treatment.

Dentist

When you require immediate dental care, you can go to a public dental care clinic (folktandvårdsklinik) or to a private dentist who has an agreement with Försäkringskassan (most dentists do).

Dentists can freely determine what to charge for a specific treatment as long as the cost is reasonable in relation to the treatment provided. Reimbursement of dental care costs is based on reference prices. The reference price is a fixed price set for each treatment procedure and its amount is determined by the Swedish government. Therefore, if you go to a dentist that charges above the reference prices, you will be liable for the portion that exceeds the reference price. The dentist must have a list of the reference prices and the prices charged by the dentist, and you should determine them before the treatment is started.

The contact information for dentists is available in Swedish on the 1177 online service (in Swedish).

Medication

In Sweden, electronic prescriptions are most often used in place of paper prescriptions. Show your identity card when collecting your prescribed medicines at a pharmacy (apoteket).

Hospital treatment

In an emergency, you can go straight to the first aid unit (akutmottagning) of a public hospital. You can also go to a private hospital if it has an agreement with the county council.

You can be reimbursed for the costs of travelling to hospital under certain conditions. The conditions depend on the region. You can ask the hospital about the travel allowance. Emergency medical transport by ambulance or helicopter is most commonly free of charge, but a user fee will be charged in some counties.

Returning to Finland (specific to the Nordic countries)

If you fall ill so that you have to return to Finland by a more expensive means of travel (e.g. special transport) than you would have normally used, you are entitled to receive reimbursement from Sweden. The reimbursement will cover the additional cost incurred from the more expensive method of travel. In other words, you will pay the same price for the return trip as you would have done when travelling healthy.

Read more about suddenly falling ill in Europe.

Read more about reimbursement of costs of treatment abroad.

Useful websites

If you want to travel to Sweden to use healthcare services there, you should read our website for general information about seeking treatment abroad. Some useful websites are also listed below. You should direct your questions about healthcare in Sweden to the Swedish National Contact Point. Sweden has two national contact points. Socialstyrelsen gives advice to foreigners who intend to seek healthcare in Sweden. Försäkringskassan acts as a contact point for Swedish residents who are seeking treatment outside Sweden.

You can find information on public healthcare services from the website of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (Sveriges kommuner och regioner, SKR). The site contains a link to the county council’s own pages that provide more information on regional services.

Quality and safety of treatment

In the event of treatment injuries, the legislation and patient insurance of the country providing the treatment is always applied. You can find more information about the quality of the treatment and patient safety from the web page of SKR (in Swedish). In case you are unhappy with the treatment you received, you should primarily try to sort the matter out with the treatment provider. If you are not satisfied with the quality of treatment that you receive in Sweden and wish to make a complaint, turn to the website of the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) for more information.

Healthcare system

The Swedish healthcare system includes both public and private healthcare services.

Public healthcare is managed and run either by a county council (region), local authority or municipality who can freely manage and prioritize their own healthcare resources. As a result, healthcare service types can vary.

Private healthcare services that have a contract with the National Health Services have the same costs as public healthcare. If the private service provider does not have such an agreement, the patient pays the treatment costs in full.

Dental care in Sweden is also both private and public. Public dental care is generally referred to as “folktandvård”.