„For patients who require a more urgent endocrinologist consultation due to the nature of their illness, it is important to give priority and ensure that they receive services faster. The referral for this consultation can be issued by any specialist doctor, without additionally consulting a family doctor. This speeds up the patient’s access to the necessary specialist, but does not create an additional burden on family doctors,“ says Minister of Health Linas Kukuraitis.
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It is expected that urgent endocrinologist consultations will be provided to patients whose health condition meets established criteria. When referring a patient for such a consultation, they must be hemodynamically stable, i.e., their circulatory system must be functioning well, laboratory tests reflecting their condition must have been performed, and there must be no indications for emergency medical care.
It is hoped that clearer referral criteria will help to more rationally distribute the workload of family doctors and specialists in other fields, patients will receive the necessary outpatient services faster, and cases where patients with endocrine system diseases turn to emergency departments unnecessarily will decrease.
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Endocrine diseases – a common health problem
Endocrine diseases are disorders related to hormone production and their action in the body. Hormones regulate many important body functions – metabolism, growth, reproductive system, blood glucose levels, and other processes. These diseases can be both acute and chronic and often require long-term specialist care.
According to the Hygiene Institute data, in 2025 more than 1 million people in Lithuania, or 35% of the country’s population, suffered from endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases. Among them, more than 263 thousand people were diagnosed with thyroid function disorders, nearly 174 thousand with diabetes mellitus, 579 thousand with lipoprotein metabolism disorders and other lipidemias.
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