The Court of Accounts has agreed to initiate an investigation into the healthcare billing system in the Community of Madrid following a report by eldiario.es which suggests that the regional government stopped claiming 71 million euros from private companies between 2017 and 2023. During that period, five of the seven years correspond to governments of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
In a proceeding issued this Monday, the oversight body announces the opening of a public action case following the complaint filed by the spokesperson for the PSOE in Madrid, Mar Espinar. In that complaint, it is requested to investigate “an alleged impairment of public funds originated in the deficient monitoring and control of invoicing” between public hospitals and privately managed centers.
The case is framed within the functioning of the Madrid healthcare system, where direct management hospitals coexist with five private management centers, four from Quirón and one from Ribera Salud. These centers compete for patients since the implementation of free healthcare choice approved during the Esperanza Aguirre era.
The model requires hospitals to register in a computer system the patients treated outside their area and the cost of their treatments to compensate each other through the so-called “inter-center balance”. Every month and every year these billings for displaced patients within the system are settled.
However, the data analyzed point to a significant imbalance. Between 2017 and 2023, private centers billed the public system a total of 1,268 million euros for patient care, while the public system failed to claim 71 million from private companies for treatments performed in public hospitals on patients from those centers.
The period investigated covers two political stages: between 2017 and 2019, under the Government of Cristina Cifuentes and, afterwards, Ángel Garrido, and between 2019 and 2023, already with Isabel Díaz Ayuso at the head of the regional Executive. The Court of Accounts must now determine if that discrepancy in billing caused economic damage to public coffers.
