WILLEMSTAD - According to the annual report of the public health insurance company, SVB spent 25 million guilders on medical referrals to foreign countries last year.
This amount is two percent less than in 2021, but surprisingly, there were more than thirty percent more medical referrals. The expected expansion of local healthcare services with the opening of the CMC (presumably a medical center) has not yet been realized.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of medical referrals in 2019 was 1,106. In 2020 and 2021, these numbers decreased to 332 and 452, respectively. However, last year (2022), the number of medical referrals, including acute cases, increased to 598.
The majority of these cases followed the regional approach, with Colombia being the most common destination. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the number of medical referrals to the Netherlands has risen to 38 percent in 2022.
Request
Treatments abroad take place at the request of a specialist or when the treatment cannot be provided in Curaçao. If the treatment is financially advantageous for the insured individual, it may also lead to a referral abroad.
The requests are evaluated by a special medical board established for this purpose. This board reviews all submitted requests, except for emergencies.
Furthermore, this board is also responsible for assessing the admission of highly qualified specialists for specific procedures that could be performed locally but would otherwise have to be sent abroad.
Preventive Care
In its annual report for 2022, the Social Insurance Bank (SVB) reports that the costs for preventive care for those covered under the basic insurance have remained relatively constant.
Additionally, the expenditures for primary care, especially for general practitioners and dentists, remained largely unchanged in 2022. Due to the compensation system for general practitioners, which is based on a fixed rate per registered patient, the costs parallel the decreasing number of BVZ-insured individuals.
However, there is an increase in expenses for dental care. This is largely attributed to the lifting of a legal maximum by a court ruling. For the same reason, expenditures for mental healthcare also increased in 2022.