Health plans
A critical analysis of the role of private health plans and their effects on doctors and patients.
Health plans grew enormously in the 1990s and 2000s, and with them the tension among operators, doctors and patients. In 2005, Pedro critically analysed the role of health plans: consultation fees, denied claims, restrictions on tests and their effect on the quality of care.
He wrote from a private office in a working-class neighbourhood, where some patients had a plan and others paid, or did not pay, out of pocket. He saw both worlds and the problems of each.
Plan regulation (Law 9.656) dated from 1998, and the regulator ANS from 2000. The text records how the medical profession reacted to this new arrangement, seen by someone who always put the patient before the bill.
This article is part of the historical archive of Pedro Moretti Guedes. It should be read as a document of its time: Medicine, pharmacology and health recommendations have changed since publication.
The original clipping is preserved by the family and will be published here once the scan can be checked against the original.