Arismendy Diaz Santana, a social security expert, and former head of the National Social Security Council lashed out against private sector interests that have stalled the initiation of large-scale primary care in the Dominican Republic for eleven years. The primary care was ordered by law but he says that health service providers have preferred to continue to reaping high profits from those insured by employers, who instead of seeing a general practitioner head direct to specialists. Diaz Santana says this has meant more than RD$150 billion in out-of-pocket extra payments from health insurance affiliates. The primary care model would focus more on prevention than on curing patients.
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El Caribe
22 October 2018
