Private doctors have had enough. After decades of losing rights to insurance companies, they have decided to take action to stop charging “four bitches per consultation”: between 7 and 10 euros for the first consultation and, if it is necessary to see the patient in 30 days, this Second consultation is not charged. For this reason, they are gathering around professional associations and associations, because “this situation can no longer be sustained.” “Remunerations have been frozen for more than 30 years and without the possibility of negotiation by doctors in most cases. Doctors who work in private practice earn less than they did sixty years ago.”
These are some of the complaints that were heard at the IV National Congress of Private Practice of Medicine, held in Madrid, in which they staged the union of the 65,000 doctors who practice privately against the precariousness they face.
Ignacio Guerrero, president of Unipromel, insisted on the need to “unite to denounce the scales still in force since the 90s and negotiate new ones. It is time for all actors: insurers, hospital groups, doctors and patients to open a negotiation table with which lays the foundations for a new relationship model, since the current one is sick.” Because, as Carlos Hernández, lawyer at the Madrid Medical Association (Icomen), explained, “the premiums for patients do not stop rising, while the medical scales are still there.” They are scales of misery, the speakers assured.
María Cordón, member of Ejercicio Libre del Icomen, “the weakest link in the chain is the doctor who receives all the stress of the income statement by seeing his medical fees reduced per act, compensating for it with a large volume of patients,” she indicated.
Precisely, what private doctors denounce is that while the healthcare business continues to grow, the situation of professionals is becoming more precarious every day. And here are the data, provided by José Luis Alcibar, representative of Private Practice Doctors of the General Council of Official Medical Associations (CGCOM): the five main insurers have 70% of the market. There are 200 grouped entities that represent 96% of the business and move more than 62,000 million euros.
“It is a business that moves many billions of euros and there is a desire to make money. They are powerful,” said Alcíbar.
Almost 70% of private doctors feel mistreated by insurers and overburdened, since to increase their income they must see numerous patients. They also complain about the “little interest in innovation” because this represents an expense that entities do not want to carry out because “it affects their income statement.” And from the bureaucracy, they have to fill out endless documents to be able to get paid and, at the minimum, they don’t pay.
The economic dependence on insurance companies prevents them from demonstrating against them, because “those who protest are excluded from the medical team,” says Alcíbar.
But this is going to end, said Ignacio Guerrero. “There is a lack of doctors in Spain, also in the private sector. And, either conditions improve, or the wheel does not work.”
Representatives of large hospital groups have shown their concern about attracting talent. “The generation that is retiring now dedicated between 60 to 80 hours per week, but the new generations are not as available. Furthermore, for every doctor who retires we need to incorporate two new ones,” said Paulo Gonçalves, CEO of Viamed.
