Diagnosis Bulgaria platform uncovers 500% surge in hospital supply costs

A new online tool called “Diagnosis Bulgaria”, created by Martin Atanasov – known for the “Black Track” platform – aggregates public data on Bulgaria’s health system, including hospital expenditures, National Health Insurance Fund reimbursements, drug prices and medical staff salaries. The platform aims to increase transparency and allow comparisons between state and municipal hospitals.

The data highlight several anomalies: some hospitals spend more than 500% above the average on medical consumables, and the same medication has been purchased at prices differing by more than twelvefold (e.g., 900 lev vs 69 lev). High‑cost therapies show price gaps of tens of thousands of lev per unit, with one batch of 60 doses costing over 2 million lev. The system also flags unusually high numbers of complex procedures in small municipal hospitals and reveals salary disparities among doctors, nurses and trainees. Atanasov stresses that the platform does not allege theft but identifies outliers that merit further investigation, and he encourages patients to use eHealth tools to monitor their own records.