There is concern in the hospital sector of the region for what they consider to be a new risk that the millionaire portfolio accumulated by Coomeva with the hospitals of Antioquia ends up staying without anyone responsible.
In the department there were 223,817 affiliated patients and the debt is estimated at $207,278 million as of June of last year, of which about $150,000 million correspond to non-performing loans.
Although they appear to be two separate problems, they are intertwined, because the same debts caused members to stop receiving health services on time.
Since February 1, the 14 EPS that received Coomeva patients in the country must be providing their health services, which has generated long lines in the capital of Antioquia.
Jilmar Renteria Delgado, coordinator of the Observatory of the Fundamental Right to Health of the Personería de Medellín, indicated that this entity will accompany the distribution of the more than 100,000 members that the EPS has only in Medellín, so that it occurs in a timely manner, after the obstacles they have suffered.
In 2021, from the Personería de Medellín, nearly 2,000 guardianships were established for health issues, of which 135 were to claim services from Coomeva. In turn, this agency of the Public Ministry filed 53 incidents for disobeying the decisions of the judges in the guardianships.
They were themes of death walks because the clinics, many times, due to the high debt they have from Coomeva, if it was not a vital emergency, they did not accept the patient
The main causes of these guardianships were to achieve the recognition of disability licenses, delivery of medicines or supplies, appointments with specialists (orthopedics, ophthalmology and psychiatry) and difficulties in the processes of referring patients to the second or third level of complexity. .
“Patients had to travel to all the municipalities of the Aburrá Valley in order to access care, including some cases from Eastern Antioquia that had to travel from Medellín so that health care could be guaranteed, which seems extremely serious to me. because they could not access a second or third level of care, they were subjects of death walks because the clinics, many times, due to the high debt they have from Coomeva, if it was not a vital emergency, they did not accept the patient”affirmed the official of the Personería.
Watch out for hospitals
As for the 125 public hospital centers in Antioquia, the amount of the debt amounts to around 75,000 million pesos, a value that is part of the 1.1 billion pesos that all EPSs owe these hospitals.
This was pointed out by Luis Alberto Martínez, from the Association of Social Enterprises of the State of Antioquia (AESA), which brings together 115 public hospitals in the department, who reported that there are 51 hospitals in the department at financial risk, so debts like these are harm more.
“Around 300,000 million are owed by EPS that we call them in inactive quotes, some because they are liquidated and others because they are not liquidated, but they left the department, for example Medimás, Saludcoop, Cafesalud, the Preventive Medical Foundation, “said Martínez.
And he added that the decision to liquidate Coomeva was taken late by the Supersalud, taking into account that it was already intervened, it presented financial, behavioral and care indicators for the population that showed its serious problems.
On the patient side, they had to resort to guardianships and the delay in caring for people because Coomeva did not pay in a timely manner, but now the problem has been transferred to the receiving EPS.
“The biggest problems occur in the medium and especially in the high complexity, second and third levels, because there are many treatments there that were in the making, that were pending initiation, cancer patients or those with chronic diseases with high cost,” added Martínez.
MELISSA ALVAREZ CORREA
TIME CORRESPONDENT
MEDELLIN
