More and more diagnostic tests are being carried out in collaboration with private healthcare in Andalusia. This is the conclusion that can be drawn from the data proposed by the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) and to which elDiario.es Andalucía has had access. Concretely, over the last decade, the number of consultations of this type has increased by almost 170%, while with public resources, the increase has been limited to 35.36%, or five times less. This growth occurred both under the time of the PSOE at the head of the Junta de Andalucía and under the PP governments of Juan Manuel Moreno.
Diagnostic tests are those during which a citizen undergoes an x-ray, analysis or blood test. That is to say, complementary medical consultations which aim to determine, using specific data, whether or not the patient suffers from the illness for which he or she contacted the doctor.
If a person is going to undergo these diagnostics at the SAS, they can be carried out either in a public center or in a subsidized center, depending on the availability of health personnel and technical facilities and means. According to official data obtained by elDiario.es/Andalucía, in Andalusia more and more are being carried out and this increase is occurring mainly with private health resources.
The SAS, before this media revealed that thousands of contracts worth 458 million were hand-cut with private entities, had already used a legal framework that had expired two years ago to precisely direct patients to care concerted health measures taking advantage of the emergency of the Covid pandemic. -19 to sign contracts by hand without advertising. A legal framework that allowed the regional government to pay to also carry out diagnostic tests in the private sector, citing the needs derived from the pandemic due to the health collapse between January 2021 and June 2023 for a value of 243 million ‘euros. The problem is further that the national regulation that protected it expired on May 9, 2021 and its formula was followed two years and one month after its repeal.
More investment than ever
Precisely, according to the data obtained from diagnostic tests, in 2021, 2022 and 2023, the majority of diagnostic tests were carried out within the framework of concerted health care over the last decade: 694,038 in 2021, 741 075 in 2022 and 682,723 in 2023. A notable increase, if we compare it to 2014, the first in the series analyzed. Then, 253,028 diagnoses were carried out in the concerted centers, which represents an increase of 169.82% since then.
Comparing the tests carried out in public hospitals, we see that in 2014 2.2 million were carried out and in 2023 it increased to 3.3, which implies an increase of 35.36%, almost five times less than the concerted one.
Furthermore, if we analyze the associated expenses over the last ten years, we also see that the record for the series analyzed was reached in 2023 with nearly 30 million euros of investment by the SAS in private health. to carry out these tests. The previous record was in 2022 with more than 24 million euros and in 2021 the 23 million were also exceeded, an investment similar to that of 2019, the first year in which the right governed in Andalusia in democracy with the bipartisan between PP and Ciudadanos.
It must be taken into account that the prices paid to carry out a diagnostic test have been the same since 2005, when the decree that regulates them was established, until they were modified this year. It is for this reason that the sums that the Andalusian Government has invested to organize these consultations for x-rays, analyzes or biopsies make it possible to directly compare the data, taking into account that each test of this type has a different price and that, for example, while a breast biopsy costs 45.85 euros, a liver biopsy goes up to 73.36 euros.
The Ministry of Health justifies the increase in diagnostic test contracts by the fact that the population, which exceeds 8.4 million people in Andalusia, is increasing, that the bureaucracy for contracting with the private sector is less than to increase public resources and that the Covid The Covid-19 pandemic represented a collapse of care that had to be resolved using “all available resources”.
In addition, although it may seem that the consultations to carry out these tests are empty, Health explains that this feeling occurs because these medical activities are carried out “very quickly” and that is why patients do not accumulate. The same health sources recall that there are hospitals like the Virgen Macarena in Seville that carry out diagnostic tests even at dawn.
An upward trend
Data analysis also reveals that currently two in ten diagnostic tests carried out at the SAS are done privately and in 2014 it was just one in ten. However, since 2015, with the governments of Susana Díaz first and then Juan Manuel Moreno – since 2019 – the trend has continued to grow in favor of consultation. With a slight decline in 2023, just as the rule that the Council continued to refer patients to the private sector for diagnostic tests was finally abandoned, taking advantage of the state decree repealed in May 2021.
On the other hand, regarding the tests carried out directly in public hospitals, as already mentioned, if 2.2 million were carried out in 2014, in 2023 the record will be reached with 3.3 million. Something which can be explained according to the argument of the collapse of care and the aging of the population defended by the Ministry of Health. Over the past decade, 5.6 million diagnostic tests were performed in the private sector and almost 24 million in the public sector.
Concerning the total expenses associated with these consultations, SAS data shows that between 2014 and 2023, 2,141 million euros were allocated to diagnostics with public resources and 227 million to those organized in the private sector. Highlighting in the latter case that private investment was higher under the Moreno governments than under those of Susana Díaz’s PSOE, even during the 2020 confinement.
With all this, the unions of the sectoral table assume that there is a problem of collapse of the health system, which also affects diagnostic tests, but that the solution cannot go through “the investment of resources in the private health”, but rather by their increase in public health. The means available to the Andalusian population to access these diagnoses should above all be those of the SAS and not those agreed upon.
