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She was the pioneer in making the decision to charge foreigners for medical care. And that’s why it became a kind of pilot test. Above all, now that several provinces have joined in and the national government has announced that jurisdictions will be authorized to charge a fee for health care for people who do not reside in the country.
Now, the governor of the province, Gustavo Sáenz, announced the economic results of the decision. With the money they saved in these ten months 34 new ambulances were purchaseddestined for the different hospitals in the jurisdiction: “The resources saved from the measure are invested to improve care for patients in Salta.” The reduction in foreign demand was 95% compared to last year, he detailed. “Today we are seeing the results,” he concluded.
Last February, the government of Salta implemented, by Law No. 8421, charging non-resident foreigners for care in public hospitals, except in cases of urgency or emergency. The objective was to prioritize assistance to patients from Salta and save resources.
The decrease in demand from foreign patients was immediate and allowed, according to local authorities, to decompress care in hospitals, especially in the northern province. This has a favorable impact on greater availability of beds and medical supplies for the people of Salta.
“We don’t just buy ambulances, which is a lot. We also had more resources to care for our patients. We did a count of all the hospitals in the province and in all of them we saw a reduction in the demand for foreigners,” he told THE NATION Federico Mangione, Minister of Health of Salta.
“Some have said the savings are negligible. Of course, in terms of percentages it may be little more than 1%. But when one analyzes the destination of those funds, it is significant. Because this year we had more resources to buy pediatric oncological treatments, which are very expensive. And even if it was just one, it is a huge difference,” Mangione added. And he continued: “We have had a lot of impact, in many other provinces it is beginning to be implemented and also at the national level. Some, like the Buenos Aires Minister of Health [Nicolás Kreplak]They said that it was not relevant, since attention to foreigners represents only 2% of attention. If you do the math right, with that budget you could buy 300 ambulances for your province. That is to say, the argument that it is a lower percentage does not hold up, because in Health, every peso is worth it, when it becomes the possibility of treating those who need it.”
In all the hospitals in the province, he said, they observed a decrease in care, especially in Oran where until February about 3,000 foreign patients were received per month. “By having a system of digitized medical records, we can follow up quickly. That’s when we discovered the famous health tours. Savings at the provincial level were 240 million pesos per month. It is equivalent to three hospital budgets with that of Santa Victoria Este,” said Mangione.
“But we don’t just buy ambulances. We also realized that this impacted the quality of medical care for the people of Salta, because we had to distribute the budget into several parts. It was a complaint that had been heard. For example, a few years ago, when there was an outbreak of dengue in Bolivia, many patients came to Oran, and care was saturated. When the infections spread in Salta, we did not have beds available for the people of Salta. And people experienced that as an injustice. Now, they feel that the care has improved,” he added.
And he clarified that emergencies are attended to in the same way. “First life and then we see how we collect it. There were many cases of pregnant women coming to give birth, without any control. We serve them the same and since they know that we are going to charge them, this situation is beginning to occur less than before. We were also detecting irregularities, because the law was made, the trap was made: we found an address in which 300 residence certificates had been registered. “All with the same address,” he explained.
In the first nine months, the San Vicente de Paul Hospital in Oran (the one with the highest demand from foreign patients) saved 2,367 million pesos. In 2023, 31,561 foreign patients had been treated. In 2024, 77 will be assisted, with cost recovery. The reduction between periods was 99%.
The numbers of patients treated in 2023 at the Oran hospital are significant. Per office, 11,513 patients were treated, with a unit cost of $10,000, which resulted in a total of $115,130,000. The “inpatient” modality registered 8900 patients with a unit cost of $200,000 and a total of $1,780,000,000. In surgical assistance, 9,128 patients were treated with a unit cost of $700,000, generating a total of $6,389,600,000. In Diagnostic Imaging, it served 9320 with a unit cost of $20,000 and a total of $186,400,000. The total cost for the year 2023 was $3,424,130,000 and the monthly cost was $263,394,615.38. During this year, in addition to the savings, cost recovery of $6,609,664 was achieved. for the attention of foreigners.
“At the provincial Health budget level, the savings were 2,000 million pesos. The total budget is $110,000 million. As a percentage, someone may say that it is not very significant. But 34 ambulances are a lot. “We are in complicated times,” said Mangione.
The measure, he stated, generated a decongestion of the health system. The decrease in demand made it possible to streamline care in hospitals, especially in the north of the province. “As a result, Salteños now have greater availability of beds. And funds are available to purchase 34 new ambulances. The first will arrive at the end of this month, and the remaining 20 are in the bidding process. All will be distributed federally in different parts of the province,” reads a statement from the provincial government.
“It was not a capricious measure, it was necessary to take it at a difficult time, because we saw that we were short of beds, that the medical supplies were not enough, that the human resources ended up tired of caring, caring and caring… and that the surgeries that were scheduled for patients from Salta ended up being referred over time to attend to those who came from outside,” Sáenz concluded.
