Nordic Healthcare Group played an important role in fostering partnership thinking and improving the smoothness of everyday operations.
At the beginning of this decade, Helsinki’s municipal oral health care noticed that demand for non-urgent adult care had grown significantly. As a result, Helsinki faced challenges in providing all adults with the necessary treatment within the care guarantee.
“We needed new ways to meet the growing demand, so we started exploring a solution based on a new type of service voucher,” says Susanna Ilonen, Chief Dental Officer of the City of Helsinki.
Helsinki already had experience with a multi-provider model, and service vouchers had been used before, but only for limited care packages such as fracture treatment, emergency follow-up or predefined non-urgent care. This time, there was a need for a model in which the customer would receive the entire treatment period from the same provider.
“Previously, care was more fragmented, as some patients returned to us for follow-up after using the voucher, or did not use it at all.”
As a result of extensive development work, the KOHO service voucher was created. It covers the entire non-urgent treatment period from examination onwards, and the patient’s co-payment is the same as in public dental care.
“The KOHO voucher was introduced in February 2021. It has had a critically important impact on the availability and smoothness of non-urgent adult care, as well as on our ability to meet legal obligations,” says Ilonen.
Companies embraced cooperation
At first, it was difficult to get providers involved, but today seven companies are already participating. According to Ilonen, KOHO vouchers can now be granted as needed.
“The compensation model differs from our other vouchers. Companies receive a lump sum and, in addition, performance-based compensation for certain defined procedures. The model has proven effective for the city, customers, and companies alike.”
Cooperation with companies has also become smoother.
“Partnership thinking has increased both in this and other outsourced services as we have worked with companies over the years.”
“Partnership thinking has increased in our outsourced services.”
Susanna Ilonen, Chief Dental Officer, City of Helsinki
Partnership thinking and the smoothness of everyday operations have been refined regularly in annual joint workshops facilitated by Nordic Healthcare Group.
“NHG’s role has been essential. They know oral health care and service voucher work inside out. NHG has also produced many analyses and reports for us, helping improve the quality of the voucher process and develop operations,” says Ilonen.
NHG Senior Advisor Lari Koukkula says he was positively surprised by how well public and private sector cooperation developed during the project.
“After a challenging start, many good shared practices have been found. The model has also brought greater transparency to both costs and care. Helsinki had already done ambitious development work even before we joined the project,” Koukkula says.
“The model has also brought transparency to costs and care.”
Lari Koukkula, Senior Advisor, NHG
Patients have given positive feedback
Patients have also been mostly satisfied with the KOHO vouchers. By October 2025, about 15 000 vouchers had been granted, which is nearly a third of all service vouchers.
“According to feedback, most patients found the voucher easy to use and felt they received the help they needed. Customers also do not need to compare prices, as the fee is the same as in public dental care,” Ilonen says.
Ilonen believes that the lump-sum compensation model could also benefit wellbeing services counties, as it brings predictability to costs.
“There have been experiments with lump-sum models in health care elsewhere, but regions differ greatly in terms of the number of available providers. However, we have found that the KOHO voucher improves access to care, reduces fragmentation and enhances the customer experience,” Ilonen says.
Project highlights
Challenge
The demand for non-urgent adult dental care increased in Helsinki, leading to long treatment queues and difficulties in meeting the care guarantee requirements.
Solution
Helsinki developed the KOHO service voucher, which covers the entire treatment period with a single provider and has the same out-of-pocket cost as public dental care.
Results
Access to care improved, treatment periods became less fragmented and patients have been mostly satisfied. The voucher has been widely issued and costs are now more predictable.
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