In the Semashko model, medical services are provided by a hierarchy of state institutions under the supervision of Ministry of Healthcare and are financed from the national budget. For the country's citizens, medical services are free and equal, with an emphasis on
social hygiene and
prevention of
infectious diseases. The model features publicly owned medical facilities, salaried health workers, large providers of
primary healthcare and an exceptionally high degree of governmental administration, providing a
universal healthcare. The Semashko model does not allow private medical practices, as all physicians in it are state employees. In the
Soviet Union under this model all of the country's territory was divided into districts, with
outpatient hospitals and local physicians assigned to each of them. These physicians were multi-
special, able to treat most common diseases, while more complicated cases were referred to regional hospitals. A special feature of the Semashko model is the "method of dynamic dispensary
surveillance", which holds that every detected case of a serious disease should be subjected to a certain set of
guidelines, including planning curative activities, documenting them, ensuring the required number of contacts with specialists, a
monitoring process and outcome indicators. Such guidelines were developed at a later stage, in the late 1960s. ==History==