They warn that the rise in costs puts the service of medical benefits at risk

The beginning of the early negotiation of the joint venture in the health sector, with requests for increases in April and June, renewed concern about a problem that companies in the sector have been warning about for some time: The payment of the new salaries cannot be afforded if the price of medical benefits is not updated at the same time. The Civil Association of Integrated Medical Activities (Acami) stated in a statement that The payment of these increases will be impossible to face by the sanatorial entities without the corresponding transfer to the price of the medical benefits, which they provide to the patients and bill the health insurers. “After two years of dealing with the pandemic, prioritizing everyone’s life and health, we find ourselves in a critical situation given the sustained loss and inexistence in most cases, of a minimum margin to operate our organizations, to which is added now, the impossibility of paying salary increases”, they explain from the health providers. The representatives of the sanatoriums affirmed that they inevitably need to recover in their prices, the negative gaps of recent years and advance in their income, the salary increases that will arise from the parity. They pointed out that, Since 2019, the prices of medical benefits have evolved below salary increases, inflation and the inflation of medicines and disposables. “Similarly, the social works and health plans of our chamber, will require adjustments of the fees or contributions, to respond to the needs of the sanatoriums, plus the constant increase of the higher costs of benefits and fundamentally, for benefits linked to social disability, increases price of high-cost drugs and coverage included due to the effects of laws or judicial resolutions, which never had as a counterpart the price increases to accompany these higher expenses, as established by the Regulation Law itself, “they indicated in the aforementioned statement. They also warn that This price adjustment mechanism becomes a vicious circle, since its result will be nothing other than a contribution to the inflation rate that feeds on different components, among them and minimally, the cost of private health, expelling people from the system and accelerating its definancing. “It’s time to work together to rethink the health financing system”, they opined. And they added: “In the meantime, it is necessary to appeal to new tools to financially sustain care. An immediate measure, already requested on various occasions, is to alleviate the tax burden generated by “non-computable” VAT, which, due to the dynamics of our activity, results in a relevant monthly cost; It is necessary to continue with the Health Repro and Dec.300, while this health emergency situation lasts, as temporary contributions equivalent to those that have been applied for the support of education for more than 40 years”. The private system, in which Acami represents non-profit entities, includes clinics, sanatoriums, century-old hospitals and health plans or management social works, distributed throughout the country. “Beyond our associates, all the health institutions in the country come from two extremely complex years, with cost increases and low activity, after attending to more than 70% of the needs of the Covid in the country; today they are not sustainable, and soon they will lack funds to maintain their facilities and employees”, they emphasized from Acami.