Private medicine provides care to 12 million people in our country, however, 87% of professionals who provide services feel underpaid. Precisely, Ana Pastor, executive secretary of Health of the Popular Party, during her speech at this congress, listed the urgent reforms of the health system where she cited “an HR policy with an approved system in professional economic and social development for the profession.
During this meeting, free practice doctors, CEOs of large hospital groups, and the insurance sector agreed that the challenge is to maintain the level of high quality care with motivated medical professionals. that is professional and with the inclusion of technological and scientific progress that does not represent an excessive increase in costs. “Quality coverage must be offered, but not at the cost of loss of wages and “a progressive deterioration of the contractual conditions of medical professionals who practice private health care,” said the president of ICOMEM, Dr . Manuel Martínez. -Sellés in his speech. A complaint with which María Cordón, member of Ejercicio Libre of ICOMEM, agreed, “the weakest link in the chain is the doctor who receives all the stress of the income statement , which saw his medical fees reduced per action, he was paid by a large number of patients,” he explained.
Payments are frozen for more than 30 years and there is no possibility of negotiation with doctors in most cases. Doctors working in private practice are paid less than sixty years ago.
To face this situation, “doctors began to unite slowly, because historically there was no culture of unity due to the law that allowed in many cases. Doctors are more aware of the importance of unity in order to the negotiation is better,” said Ignasi Pidevall, director of Legal Advice at COMB.
In the same line, Ignacio Guerrero, president of UNIPROMEL, explained that doctors can negotiate collectively as already warned by the European Competition Commission. “There are 22 associations that participated in the negotiation process. Private doctors who want to do this must contact the free exercise members of their schools or UNIPROMEL” – and he added – “We must unite to criticize the scales that have been in force since the 90s and negotiate with the bags -o. It is time for all the actors: insurers, hospital groups, patients doctors to open a negotiation table where to lay the foundations for a new relationship model, because the current got sick.
One of the colleges that is preparing to open the negotiation table is the Madrid College of Physicians. “one of the specific objectives included in ICOMEM in its revised statutes is to protect the interests of members against entities that finance health; The college is able to establish agreements with free health care insurance entities where members can voluntarily participate, and a private practice table was created to be a source of ideas and initiatives,” concluded the head of the Legal Department of ICOMEM.
Another issue that destabilizes the sector is the updating of the nomenclature that must be adapted to medical practices to gain efficiency and adjustment of payment. José Luis Alcibar, national representative of private doctors at the OMC, expects that this institution is currently working on a very ambitious project, “where I hope that in two years we will have a work model that allows us which has all the years. , the gazetteer of all the updated specialties.”
Sector continuity
At this time, the quality maintenance of this model is questioned for many reasons: lack of professionals, emergence of AI tools, system proliferation, little flexibility and uncertainty in the scope of the contractual relationship, in addition in collaboration with the public. .
For Isidro Díaz de Bustamante, president of the Health and Affairs Commission of CEIM and ACHPM, “there is only one health care and we are judged to agree. Today, in private health care, we face 33% in all visits and 40% of interventions.
Regarding the growth experienced in the health insurance sector, Joaquín López, director of healthcare and business planning at HM Hospitales, thinks that the increase should be sustained. “In this value chain there is obviously something wrong. Private health care represents 2.5% of GDP, but we need to work on a good agreement between the major players: hospital groups, clinics, insurance companies and professionals.
Similarly, Pedro Rico, CEO of Vithas, warned that, “the insurance sector must take a step forward and get some short and medium-term commitment to the remuneration of professionals. If we do not change the thing, the system will collapse and we will be destroyed by crises similar to what we experienced in Portugal.
However, Luis Mayero, consultant of Asisa, clarified that the reality of the doctor’s salary model is adjusted to the health insurance model “which combines low premiums with a lot of coverage. “80% of the premiums received by insurance companies are dedicated to health care benefits and in many cases it reaches up to 100%.
On the other hand, Josep Santacreu, president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, provided some solutions, including “reinventing the family environment in the private sector using teleconsultation, in addition to paying professionals appropriately way.”
Fewer and fewer professionals are attracted to the private sector
Representatives of major hospital groups expressed their concern about attracting talent. “The generation that is retiring today is dedicated to between 60 and 80 hours per week, but the new generation is equally available. In addition, for every doctor who retires we need to recruit two new ones,” said Paulo Gonçalves, CEO of Viamed, who believes that training in private medicine is one of the solutions. Continuing training, teaching, research, innovation, clinical management of resources and investment in technology scarce resources in private medicine. An incentive that should always be there, “it is useful to do the training and accredit it in the European environment,” concluded Tomas Cobo, president of the WTO.
In this forum, inaugurated by Juan José Fernández, vice-councilor of the Community of Madrid, Antonio Burgueño, John de Zulueta, Elena Flores, Josá Ramón Rubio, Luis Mendicuti, Javier Tirado, Pedri Arazuzo, Enrique Castellón, Alexis Godoy, Juan Vaz Calderon .
