Finland's Social Insurance Institution (Kela) announced that it has sent around 44,000 students notifications regarding unpaid health care fees amounting to just under 36 euros per term.
According to a statement issued on Monday, Kela said university students can expect to receive a payment reminder if they registered as students by 30 September but had not paid the health care fee by then.
Kela does not directly send bills for the health care fee, but rather it is paid by the students' own initiatives, via the agency's online platform OmaKela.
Students who had not paid the fee by 30 September will get a letter reminding them about it, as well as a five euro late fee.
If students did pay the fee after 30 September, the agency said they will still receive a late fee bill.
The majority of students, around 227,000 people, have paid the fee on time.
Regarding students who end up not paying the health care fee even after receiving the reminder Kela said it would deduct the sum of the fees from their study grants without consulting them.
The health care fee is used to pay for students' health care services. The Finnish state finances 77 percent of higher education student health care costs and the remaining 23 percent is financed via the health care fee, according to Kela.
All students attending universities and universities of applied sciences that are entitled to use the Finnish Student Health Service (abbreviation in Finnish YTHS) are compelled to pay the health care fee. To find out about the fee, Kela's website has more information on the topic.
