From the August 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine

As a whole, the Mexican health system is regulated by the Health Secretariat, which is responsible for the establishment of the main guidelines of the Mexican health policy and the National Health System. As such, the Health Secretariat has to ensure public and private institutions act in accordance with national health regulations and policies.

The Mexican health sector is predominantly public; nonetheless, the private sector has steadily increased its share. In the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in the private sector, with the exponential growth of private health groups such as Grupo Ángeles, Médica Sur, Hospitales ABC and StarMedica. The predominance of these private groups has pushed smaller private health institutions to cooperate and join efforts in order to increase their leverage when negotiating the acquisition of medical devices with distributors and manufacturers and to attract new patients while under the shadow of those giant private groups. A good example of these cooperative relationships can be seen in the Consorcio Mexicano de Hospitales (CMH), the most important private network of hospitals, with 27 associates throughout the Republic, and initiator of a plan that has proven its worthiness by improving the quality of its associates’ services and their negotiating strength with providers and insurance companies.


The future perspectives on the evolution of Mexican
medical systems look bright. Though the private sector had a hard time in 2009 and 2010 due to the international economic crisis that impacted the country, it has greatly recovered and is expected to grow steadily in the coming years. Alejandro Paolini, General Manager of Philips Healthcare, backs that assessment. “The private sector had a hard time in 2009, but it has improved and is now moving along with the industry. The public sector can change and it is hard to predict should there be a change of government, but things look good, and the current government is investing a lot into the health sector,” he says. (Editor’s note: Since the completion of this research, the government the PRI’s victory in the recent presidential election will mean a change of government). “We do not predict the political climate here in Mexico to change very much soon. It is heading along a good path and should continue to do so. Universal Health Coverage is something of great importance to the current government and it looks set to continue on its path towards widening in the country. In the worst of cases, Mexico will maintain its current levels of investment in the health sector, but it is very likely that these will increase.”

Factors shaping health care

August 2012 Magazine

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