The Health Area of Ibiza and Formentera has this year invoiced (from January 1st to November 20th) almost 10.5 million euros to third parties according to data from the Invoicing Department. Specifically, the invoices issued for providing health care to both insurance company patients (traffic accidents, work-related accidents, etc.) and foreign patients during this period amount to 10,404,031.39 euros. This amount is higher than that invoiced in the same period of 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, i.e. the year that can be accurately compared to 2022.
The increase of 2.47% means that so far the health area has billed approximately 251,000 euros more this year than three years ago, when this figure was 10,152,953.11.
The vast majority of outpatient billing corresponds to care at Can Misses Hospital. Care at this center accounts for 77.3% of the billed amount. Another 10.22% (a total of 1,063,929.4 euros) corresponds to the Formentera Hospital while the remaining 1.3 million (12.5% of the total) were invoices issued by Primary Care.
The proportion between these three types of care has varied slightly with respect to that of 2019. While three years ago it was more evenly distributed, in 2022 it tends to be more heavily concentrated in the Can Misses Hospital, where the amount billed accounts for seven points more while in both Formentera and the health centers it has fallen by around three and a half points.
In fact, when comparing the total data for all invoices issued, while in the case of Can Misses Hospital there is an increase (13.6% more), in Formentera and in Primary Care the total billing has fallen: 21.8% in the case of the hospital of the southern pitiusa and 24.1% in the health centers. Management points out that the drop is much more pronounced than the increase in Can Misses, since the amounts involved are “much smaller” and a reduction or a small increase in total numbers makes a big difference in percentage terms.
Fewer tourists in Primary Health Care
In all three cases, billing to patients from other countries exceeds that known as third parties. A situation that was already occurring in 2019. One of the most striking data when comparing these data is that the fall in healthcare billed in Primary Care is exclusively due to the 38.7% drop in visits by foreigners (from 1.3 million euros in 2019 to 790,891 in 2022), as there has been a 20% increase in billing to third parties, which now exceeds half a million euros. These data seem to indicate that tourists have needed to resort to public healthcare for more serious cases.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.