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Choosing care in another Swedish region
If the specialist clinic in your region has a long queue, or you want a different set of eyes on a diagnosis, you are not confined to your own region. Swedish law gives you an explicit choice of publicly funded outpatient care anywhere in the country. It is one of the strongest rights a patient in Sweden has, and one of the least described in English.
Quick answer
Chapter 9, section 1 of the Swedish Patient Act lets you choose publicly funded outpatient care in another Swedish region, with no seriousness threshold. Three conditions come with it: you must follow the applicable referral rules of the receiving region, you pay the patient fee charged by the treating region, and if you make the choice yourself you normally cover your own travel and accommodation. The healthcare guarantee does not follow you — it applies in the region where you are registered. Because queue lengths for the same procedure differ substantially between regions, it is still often the most useful public route to a second assessment, and the one most patients never hear about.
The exact wording
Chapter 9, section 1 of the Patient Act (2014:821):
En patient som omfattas av en regions ansvar för hälso- och sjukvård
ska inom eller utom denna region få möjlighet att välja utförare av
offentligt finansierad öppen vård.
In English: a patient covered by a region's responsibility for healthcare shall be able to choose, inside or outside that region, the provider of publicly funded outpatient care.
Note what is absent: there is no condition about how serious your illness is. Compare that with the right to a new medical assessment in chapter 8, which applies only to life-threatening or particularly serious conditions. Chapter 9 is far broader and almost nobody invokes it.
Note also what is not absent. The choice does not remove the receiving region's referral rules, and it does not carry the healthcare guarantee with you. Both points are set out below, because a page that leaves them out sends people to a clinic that will turn them away.
What it covers — and what it does not
| Covered by the choice | Not covered |
|---|---|
| Publicly funded outpatient care — specialist assessments, follow-ups, imaging reviews | Your travel, accommodation and time off work, if you make the choice yourself |
| Clinics in any Swedish region, on the same medical grounds as their own residents | Planned inpatient care, which runs through a separate route |
| Care at the patient fee charged by the treating region | The healthcare guarantee — it applies in the region where you are registered |
| Access to a different queue | Exemption from the receiving region's referral rules |
Why this matters for a second opinion
A second opinion is, in system terms, an outpatient specialist assessment. That places it squarely inside chapter 9. If the orthopaedic department that recommended your operation is the only one you have been offered, you may choose another publicly funded provider — in Skåne, in Västra Götaland, in Norrbotten — provided you follow that region's referral rules and pay the patient fee it charges.
The honest limitation is distance. A single assessment visit in another region is usually practical; a rehabilitation programme is not. Decide which of the two you are actually arranging before you start.
The step people skip
Request your records and imaging reports before you book, not after. A clinic in another region has no access to your notes from the first provider unless you bring them. Arriving without the material turns a second opinion into a first opinion made with less information than the original — the opposite of what you came for.
How Andrabedomning.se fits in
Andrabedomning.se is an independent Swedish patient guidance service. You describe your situation in a request — in English — and a person reads it and replies, normally within one working day, with information about relevant specialist contact. If we cannot help, you get an explanation of why and where to turn instead. We do not diagnose or provide medical care. Records go directly to the care provider, never to us.
Sending a request is free and commits you to nothing. If we can coordinate a suitable specialist contact, two amounts are disclosed to you in writing before anything is booked: our coordination fee (samordningsavgift), which is our only source of revenue, and the specialist's fee, which is set by the care provider and paid directly to them. We take no commissions or referral fees from specialists or clinics. How it works in full →
Andrabedomning.se coordinates the contact. The medical assessment is made by the specialist and care provider you choose.
Frequently asked questions about choosing care in another region
Does my home region have to pay for care I choose in another region?
For publicly funded outpatient care covered by the choice in chapter 9, section 1, you pay the patient fee charged by the treating region — fees differ between regions, so it is not necessarily the same as at home. If you make the choice yourself you normally cover your own travel and accommodation. For a single specialist assessment that trade is often worth it; for a course of treatment requiring repeat visits it usually is not, and that is the calculation to make before you book.
Do I need permission from my own region first?
No. The choice is the patient's and does not require approval from your home region. What you do need is a referral if the receiving clinic requires one for that type of care — the choice of provider does not remove a referral requirement, it removes the geographic restriction. Many clinics accept a self-written egen vårdbegäran in place of a doctor's referral.
Does this apply to inpatient care and surgery?
The wording covers öppen vård — outpatient care. Planned inpatient care in another region generally runs through a different route and may require agreement from your home region. For a second opinion this rarely matters, because an assessment of a diagnosis, imaging or a proposed operation is outpatient care by definition.
Will the other region put me at the back of their queue?
You are placed in the receiving clinic's queue on the same medical grounds as their own residents. Note one important limit: the healthcare guarantee does not follow you to the other region — it applies in the region where you are registered. So you gain access to a possibly shorter queue, but you give up the guarantee's time limits as an enforceable claim. Queue lengths for the same procedure differ substantially between regions, which is why the right is useful anyway, but no one can promise you a specific date in advance.
Can I use this to get a second opinion specifically?
Yes, and it is often the cleanest public route when chapter 8, section 1 does not apply to your condition. You are choosing a different publicly funded provider to assess you; that the assessment happens to be your second is not a legal category the system tracks. Bring the first assessment and the imaging reports with you, or the visit becomes a first assessment done with less information.
What is the practical first step?
Identify the clinic in the other region and check whether they accept an egen vårdbegäran or require a doctor's referral for your type of case. Then request copies of your records and imaging reports from the provider who assessed you, so the new clinic is reviewing the same material. Records go from you to the receiving provider — Andrabedomning.se never handles them.
Sources
- Patient Act (patientlagen 2014:821), chapter 9, section 1 — the verbatim right to choose a provider of publicly funded outpatient care inside or outside your own region.
- 1177 — Vårdgaranti — the 90-day limit for a first visit in specialist care and the duty to offer care elsewhere if it is not met.
- 1177 — Remiss och egen vårdbegäran — that a self-written care request is assessed in the same way as a doctor-written referral. Whether an egen vårdbegäran can be used at all, and which referral rules apply, varies between regions and clinics.
Editorially produced by Andrabedomning.se from the primary sources above. Sources last checked: 4 August 2026.
Related pages
- Second opinion in Sweden — the main guide
How this right fits with the other two routes.
- Your legal right to a second opinion
The narrower right in chapter 8, and when it applies.
- The healthcare guarantee
What the 90-day limit covers, and the date it is actually counted from.
- Referrals and self-written care requests
How an egen vårdbegäran works and what it can and cannot do.
Weighing a second assessment outside your region?
Describe your situation in a few sentences and tell us which assessment or recommendation you have already received. Sending a request is free. If we can coordinate a suitable specialist contact, our coordination fee and the specialist's separate fee are disclosed in writing before you decide whether to book.
In an emergency, call 112. For non-urgent medical advice, call 1177.