The healthcare related professional orders, represented at the Conselho Consultivo da Entidade Reguladora da Saúde (ERS) – Advisory Board of the Health Regulation Authority by the Ordem dos Médicos Dentistas (Order of Dentists) and by the Ordem dos Médicos (Order of Physicians), demand a significant reduction on the regulatory fees charged to the healthcare providers. The orders have been protesting against the high value of these fees charged by the ERS for years and a report from the Court of Auditors gave them reason. The report from the Court of Auditors advises “the review of the criteria for establishing the value of these fees, to prevent the patients from paying more for the services because of these fees. The situation has led to a surplus increase which was of 16,9 million euros in 2015, an amount that could finance the institution’s activity for almost 4 years”.
This is a situation that for the Healthcare related professional orders demands an immediate review in order to, as the Court of Auditors mentions, “prevent these contributions from encumbering unjustifiably the cost structure of the healthcare providers, and as a consequence the healthcare prices paid by the healthcare users”. The healthcare providers are forced to register with the ERS and pay for the registration fee 900 euros plus 25 euros for each healthcare professional, and the healthcare providers must still pay yearly a regulatory fee of 450 euros per establishment and 12.50 euro per healthcare professional. There are 22.565 establishments registered with the ERS which are managed by 13.239 entities.
Miguel Guimarães, chairman of the Order of Physicians says that “the ERS hasn’t been competent in its function of defending the rights of the users through the regulation for the access to quality healthcare services. ERS’s activity has been concentrated on charging fees from all healthcare providers, private and public. Besides that, the ERS hasn’t shown throughout all these years any evidence that justifies its existence. There is no reason for the ERS to charge fees as high as they are right now, and so we demand a significant reduction. The Court of Auditors mentions several unexplainable situations concerning the way the ERS works, such as one person in charge for each three who are not, and the Court of Auditors also concluded that the ERS has a return of 46%, an unthinkable amount of money, so the fees should at least decrease in an equal percentage. It’s time to regulate ERS’s performance.”
Orlando Monteiro da Silva, chairman of the Order of Dentists, reveals that “just in 2015, the year concerned in the review from the Court of Auditors, the ERS collected almost 8 million euros in fees, which constitute 99% of its revenues, a value considerably higher than its activity costs and which, according to the judges, has been leading to an accumulation of cash surpluses which create no value. An unacceptable situation at a time when so many Portuguese people have difficulties in accessing healthcare services.”
