Prepaid companies warn about the impact of a court ruling that forces them to return money to their members

Prepaid companies warned that the Justice’s ruling ordering affiliates to reimburse affiliates for increases above the CPI variation “will have an impact.” Threatens the functioning of the private health system” in Argentina.

This was expressed by sources in the sector after learning of the decision of the Federal Civil and Commercial Judge Juan Rafael Stinco, who ordered prepaid pharmaceutical companies to “bring back the amount of prices to the quotas in force by December 2023” and which Updates prices according to the Consumer Price Index. The magistrate issued a security precautionary measure initiated by the national government through the Superintendent of Health Services.

According to the companies, “the increase was not the result of any cartelized decision, but of a group decision.” Urgent need to realign fees of providers affected by the decisions of the previous government.” They were also used to reinforce doctors’ fees, “in some cases with increases well in excess of inflation.”

“These increases occurred in accordance with the liberation of the sector that was established in the DNU of the national government and were transferred to improve the income of providers, whose clinics are in critical condition, many of which had to reduce staff Because they couldn’t afford it they could afford the cost.

Thus, private medical sources described the risks brought by the judicial proposal, including the possibility that “the financiers would eventually go bankrupt.”

He also pointed to the increase in the prices of medicines. “Laboratories inflated values ​​well above the variation in inflation. Medicines constitute a very significant portion of prepaid drug costs. will it be implemented Same decision for those laboratories also?”, he asked himself.

The companies pointed out that “the health system is too complex to make decisions about any one actor without taking into account the whole picture. If the judicial measure is confirmed, the consequences will certainly be the disappearance of countless companies in the sector, poor quality service for users and reduced income for doctors and professionals.”

As requested by the court, the Ministry of Health had promoted the decision in question through the Superintendent of Health Services:

• Leaves grow without effect from 12/1/2023
• Returns the quota value as of 1/12/2023, which should be updated according to CPI
• Set a period of five days for prepaid drug companies to come up with a plan explaining how they will refund people after overcharging them.
• The universe is 23 companies that were under the superintendent’s precaution, representing 95% of the users of the prepaid drug unit.

The three major companies in the sector assured that they were analyzing the decision, but that they would comply with it. “Whatever the judge says will be done. We have 5 days to submit a return proposal. These are decisions that companies will generally have to follow. I don’t think anyone will fail to comply,” he added to one of them.

During this Friday, the Commerce Ministry, led by Pablo Lavigne, had contact with some companies to accommodate the growth plan detailed by the government yesterday and companies were already applying. “There were some doubts, but everything fell into place in the end. And this failure happened midway. Let’s see how we get on. The appeal instance is definitely an option,” he told another company in the market.