Supersalud indicates that pharmaceutical managers owe more than 6 billion pesos to the industry.

The National Health Superintendency indicated that pharmaceutical managers owe more than 6 billion pesos to the pharmaceutical industry.

This was confirmed by the agency after compiling information submitted by the supervised entities as of March of this year. The figure, the watchdog agency says, "has drawn attention" due to the significant difference between the figures reported by both supervised entities.

"While pharmaceutical managers report a total debt of over 6.4 trillion pesos with laboratories ($6,448,588,047,351), the EPS report debts with the managers for only 852 billion pesos. Of that amount, 40.9% corresponds to obligations more than 365 days old, equivalent to 349 billion pesos . In short, the debt reported by pharmaceutical managers with laboratories is seven times greater than what the EPS recognize with the managers," indicates the Supersalud in a statement.

In a statement, the National Health Superintendency highlighted the debts reported by some pharmaceutical managers to the pharmaceutical industry, and by some EPSs to pharmaceutical managers.

The entity explains that three managers hold 73.1 percent of the debt. " Audifarma, Cruz Verde, and Foscal hold 73.1% of the total debt owed to pharmaceutical companies . Regarding the EPS, the main debtors to the pharmaceutical managers are Famisanar (28.7%), Sanitas (21.4%), Mutual Ser (8.87%), SOS (8%), Asmet Salud (7.47%), and Emssanar (7.1%), which together represent 81.7% of the total, not including Nueva EPS," the statement indicates.

Regarding the intervened EPSs, the Supersalud (Health Superintendency) indicated: "In the case of the intervened EPSs, several have indicated that the majority of complaints regarding medication dispensing are concentrated in a few pharmaceutical managers. For example, Famisanar reported that 90.85% of complaints are related to just two managers. Sanitas EPS indicated that 51% of its complaints stem from the management of two dispensers, while SOS reported that 21.12% of complaints are concentrated in three pharmaceutical managers," the statement said.

For the Supersalud, the debts of the managers with the laboratories

"They are concerned about the effects of this situation, related to the failure to deliver medication to healthcare system users."

Debts between EPSs, pharmaceutical managers, and laboratories continue to affect the delivery of medications to health system members, as reiterated by the Health Superintendency.

"Between January and April of this year, 186,221 complaints were filed for medication delivery failures, according to data from the User Protection Office. The health insurance companies with the highest number of complaints for this reason are Nueva EPS, Sanitas, Salud Total, Sura, and Coosalud, all with extensive coverage," the statement said.