The result is that Poland has the longest waiting times in the EU for health care interventions such as cataract and joint replacement surgery, such as cataract and joint replacement surgery (Figure 14). Specialists may have an incentive to maintain waiting lists to boost demand for their own private services paid out-of-pocket by patients, and the practice of double employment is fairly widespread and poorly regulated in Poland (European Commission, 2016). For example, waiting times for some specialities can be up to 12 months in some regions (Kowalska et al., In addition, the share of patients waiting for a neurology, ophthalmology, cardiac, endocrinology or orthopaedic appointment in 2014 varied almost three-fold across Poland's 16 regions (World Bank Group, 2015).