“Up to 60% of our income is spent on expenses.”
AT 66% (two thirds) of the doctors working in private mutuals do not feel well treated by insurers, according to the survey “Estudi dels professionals de la medicina privada” carried out by the European Institute of Public Health. Consell de Col.legis de Metges de Catalunya (Catalan Medical Association) by the end of 2021. Paradoxically, insurance companies are experiencing a policy contract boom life insurance policies: throughout Spain, the health insurance increased by 7% in 2022, in terms of Spanish Union of Insurance and Reinsurance Entities. (Unespa). Catalonia in first place and then Madrid are the two communities in which they develop the most. Unespa billed 2,000 million euros in Catalonia in 2020.
“Despite the fact that there was a very strong growth of mutuals In recent years, many of them have frozen fees. Some have frozen them for 25 or 30 years,” he explains. Father Torner, president of the section of doctors with free insurance of the European Union. Col.legi Oficial de Metges de Barcelona (COMB). Which, according to this traumatologist from the Clínica Sagrada Família, puts many doctors in a difficult situation. “limit situations”, in which they even end lose money.
Torner points out that private doctors have a “a very high volume of expenses”, because they pay for the office, the nurse, the scrub nurse, the assistant… For example, for a family and community medicine visit Prices vary between 14 and 18 euros gross, but 10 years ago they were between 13 and 17 euros gross. visit to the medico-surgical specialty, the amounts vary from 19.5 to 27 euros gross (18 and 26 euros gross ten years ago). And for one laparoscopic surgery, between 217 and 570 euros gross (225 and 470 10 years ago).
“But that’s not what we doctors charge, because we have to bear all the costs. Sixty to seventy percent of income is spent on expenses. » he points out. Another example: Torner, as a traumatologist, does prostheses in private practice. “I charge between 400 and 800 euros, but that includes all the treatment of the patient: all the visits to the clinic, all the material. I get half of those numbers. » he complains.
political war
The COMB has already once warned that the increasing policies The increase in private sector policies can affect the quality of care. In recent years, a political war has erupted between companies over who can provide the best care. the cheapest, which leads to suggest Policies at 12 or 15 euros per month, which “consolidate precarious models which jeopardize the quality” of the sector, according to the COMB.
Doctors denounce the fact that the economic loss suffered in recent years has been put in parallel with the increase in the number of accidents. “profits” of insurance companies, according to Torner. “Companies, every year greatly increase their profits and we lose every year, because fees are not discounted and costs increase,” he concludes.
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