OBJECTIVES: In the State of Health in the EU Health Profile 2021 Report, Greece had the second highest level of unmet medical care needs among EU countries. The main purpose of our research was to identify the unmet medical needs from the patients’ perspective with focus on Greece and to question whether the EU Directive Proposal adequately address the introduction of innovation and the challenge of adjusting for unmet needs, especially for the vulnerable populations.

METHODS: The methodology employed for our research involved a comprehensive review of existing literature, reports, and other publications related to UMN in Greece. Additionally, semi-structured interviews with selected patients’ focus group were conducted to gather their perspectives. The patients participated in the interviews were chronic patients from different therapeutic categories, with various levels of disease severity & functionality status, being on treatment for over than 3 years. There was an age variation from 23-65 years old, and residence variation among urban and non-urban areas in Greece.

RESULTS: Our research, through the literature review and the interviews with the patients, unveiled that predisposing factors such as age, sex, education level, and marital status and other contributing factors such as availability, accessibility, and acceptability can influence UMN. The definition of UMN based on the EU Directive Proposal represents to a moderate extent the patients and was described as restrictive, as does not cover their basic needs such as quality of life, functionality, holistic management of the disease and financial coverage of out-of-pocket payments.

CONCLUSIONS: Summarizing the patients' view, unmet medical needs are in reality unmet healthcare & patient support needs, across the whole spectrum of health services. The most important conclusion is that all these parameters are highly differentiated by disease and by condition-severity.