Vacíos normativos en empresas privadas de salud y medicina prepagada en tiempos de COVID-19.

Abstract

Over the years, prepaid medicine companies have gained certain acceptance by society, clients hire these services and products for various conditions that in the short, medium or long term could cause serious complications, and which could mean considerable expenses, since they may require personalized medical care, medical studies, laboratory tests, and any type of additional medical intervention in order to protect health. In Ecuador, at the beginning of the year 2020, the effects of the virus in our society began to be witnessed, there were many limitations and restrictions for various activities, for which Ministerial Agreements were issued from time to time, with which they intended to regulate the situation in which we found ourselves and consequently prevent the spread of the virus in the national territory. On March 12, 2020, Ministerial Agreement No. 00126-2020 was published, issued by the Ministry of Public Health in which it declares the state of Health Emergency, in the fourth general provision expressly prohibits private health insurance companies and prepaid medicine companies from limiting coverage for users-patients affected by COVID-19. The legal problem lies in the existence of a regulation of competent authority, which must be strictly and compulsorily complied with by those companies that develop this activity, however, they ignored it, generating great and serious damages to those patientsusers who required a costly treatment to survive. It is considered the existence of a normative void in our legislation, since it left open the possibility of denying hospital coverage to the patients-users, due to the terms and conditions of the contracts regarding the waiting periods.