Added to the sustained increases in services, food and recreation, is the high cost of health-related benefits that directly impacts the entire population. According to the information provided by the Association of Clinics and Sanatoriums of Mendoza (Aclisa)in the last 10 years the cost of medical care it increased 1,980%, although the fees for benefits increased less than half.
The access to health in Argentina it is a universal right that all people who are within the territory have, however, the values of the quotas, the lack of coverage and the reduction of medical records of social works y prepaid medical companies have a direct impact on patients. The unfavorable situation also extends to private clinics and sanatoriums, which currently provide 4 out of 10 hospital beds. Health System.
These effectors and other institutions providing health services in the private sector denounce a mismatch between costs, value of benefits and delays in payments that directly impacts professionals who, due to these difficulties, decide to emigrate.
In 10 years, the cost of medical care increased 1,980%, although the benefit fees increased by less than half, which expresses the problem aggravated by the inflationary context. “If we compare the evolution of the values and costs of the last ten years, the dollar increased 1,992% according to the Central Bank and the cost of health, 1,980%, according to the health chambers; the consumer price index, 1,490%, the salary of a nurse 1,150% according to the collective labor agreement and the benefit tariffs 800% ”, warned Dr. José Luis Sánchez Rivas, president of the Association of Clinics and Sanatoriums of Mendoza ( Aclisa) and president of the Argentine Confederation of Clinics, Sanatoriums and Hospitals (Confeclisa).
“It is appreciated that there is a gap and that is impacting the entire chain downwards such as the payment of taxes, to suppliers, in technological maintenance and in sanatoriums, in the payment of fees, in the payment of salaries, it is going producing a run and an accumulation of liabilities in the clinics because the problem of financing is really complicated”, expressed Sánchez Rivas.
From the national entities that represent clinics and other health service providers, they affirmed that “the national health system is facing its worst crisis in years. With regulated revenues and costs that exceed inflation, health provider institutions are headed for an uncertain Insufficient financing from most of the social works jeopardizes the subsistence of clinics, sanatoriums, geriatric and psychiatric institutions, medical emergency companies and ambulatory care institutions”.
The referents of the sector of private clinics and sanatoriums argue that the financial situation is critical due to various aspects related to price increases in new technologies, high tax burdens and delays in the payment of fees that generate a disparity between income and expenses. This is leading clinics to a situation of underfinancing with tax indebtedness, delay in payments to suppliers and consequently overpricing, difficulties in paying salaries, among other effects.
The impact on professionals
The private sector and professionals are key to the public health system that currently works with both state and private providers. According to a report prepared by the Institute of Public Health and Sanitary Management in 2011, in the province of Mendoza, 37% of the beds in the system were owned and managed by the private sector, a number that is currently estimated to be higher and would be similar to what that occurs at the national level, an area in which this proportion is 44%.
Within this framework, another problem must be taken into account related to the growing difficulty in covering medical charges due to the bidding between institutions to hire scarce professionals, critical medical specialties, emigration of doctors, difficulties in covering hospital residences and clinical specialties such as medical therapists and clinicians, among others.