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Requirements for Seguro Popular


Zeb

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9 hours ago, bdmowers said:

Joco do you know if this hospital is purely an SP member-only hospital or can one who is not a member of SP get served there on a fee payment basis?

It is a community hospital. The name "Seguro Popular" is not on the building. 

To see a doctor without SP cost about $70 pesos. 

 

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4 hours ago, cedros said:

No one (Mexican or foreign) seems to know the real answer to your question and to similar ones like it unfortunately. Quite Mexican.

It is a community hospital. SP will pay for treatment but many people pay out of their pockets. A doctor visit is about $70 pesos. Vaccines and some examinations are free. Anyone should be able to afford treatment there and,  if not, he can sign up for SP while being treated.

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8 hours ago, cedros said:

No one (Mexican or foreign) seems to know the real answer to your question and to similar ones like it unfortunately. Quite Mexican.

AlanMexicali had answered the question in general for SP hospitals. I asked the question of Joco because I had heard the Jocotepec SP hospital was a kind of community hospital in addition to being an SP hospital and would treat people on this basis (oh!  the stories one hears in this land). Guess I`ll have to go there and find out!

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5 hours ago, bdmowers said:

AlanMexicali had answered the question in general for SP hospitals. I asked the question of Joco because I had heard the Jocotepec SP hospital was a kind of community hospital in addition to being an SP hospital and would treat people on this basis (oh!  the stories one hears in this land). Guess I`ll have to go there and find out!

 

I was treated  at the hospital when I didn't have my SP membership with me and I was charged $70-$75 pesos, not much for the excellent service I received. The hospital was built by the last Joco presidente and I think his doctor brother still runs the hospital. It is a community hospital that takes SP insurance.

Not many employees speak English so if your Spanish isn't very fluent, take a translator with you. I noticed that during the week there are more student doctors and nurses there who are bilingual. It is a training hospital. 

 

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On ‎06‎/‎08‎/‎2016 at 6:01 PM, AlanMexicali said:

No they can´t. You must have legal residency to join. Only in a life threatening emergency situation can you go to a SP emergency room and get taken care of. I believe they sign you up for 90 days with no documentation for life threatening emergencies and it is free of charge or it used to be.

I just added this below. It is accurate as far as I know.

Quote

 

Apparently the 90 day sign up without documentation is good for any sickness, not only life threatening emegrencies as I stated above.

 

Also they will see people who are from other socaiized medicine systems or possibly no medical insurance in remote aeas where there are no other clincs except the Centro de Salud clinic [Seguro Popular] for a consultation fee of $70.00 pesos. We did that in Punta de Mita when a palapa restaurant poisioned us with a filet de pescado a few years ago. It cost $65.00 pesos then and the Dr. gave use prescription to fill and an antibiotic shot for a small charge and we belong to the ISSSTE federal employees medical system.

You definately can´t get a 3 year contract for normal medical care without being a legal resident of Mexico with proof at the Seguro Popular.

 

They do have a policy to never turn anyone away when sick though.

I updated the above post as some people here have used the SP without signing up for a fee.

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On ‎8‎/‎9‎/‎2016 at 9:53 AM, CHILLIN said:

BD - I believe the Military Hospital in Guadalajara offers affordable and competent medical procedures at a very good price. This is based on what has been reported at the Naval Hospital in Puerto Vallarta.

Thanks, Chillin!

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2 hours ago, AlanMexicali said:

I just added this below. It is accurate as far as I know.

I updated the above post as some people here have used the SP without signing up for a fee.

Thanks for this, AM.   Do you know anything about so-called "community hospitals" in Mexico?  Joco has reported that the new hospital in Jocotepec is such and that it is not an SP hospital.  I guess then I would assume it is a private hospital but the fees are not those of a private hospital but much lower.  Do you know of a kind of official designation as "community hospital" ? Do they get any kind of governmental help? Thanks.

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Good question bdmowers. It is all a bit confusing. It would be nice if someone could sum of the features of all the different types of hospitals.

 

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8 hours ago, bdmowers said:

Thanks for this, AM.   Do you know anything about so-called "community hospitals" in Mexico?  Joco has reported that the new hospital in Jocotepec is such and that it is not an SP hospital.  I guess then I would assume it is a private hospital but the fees are not those of a private hospital but much lower.  Do you know of a kind of official designation as "community hospital" ? Do they get any kind of governmental help? Thanks.

 

The new hospital in Jocotepec is a Seguro Popular community hospital. Below is a 3 part Lake Chapala Reporter article explainig what is available at the SP in your area for Expats but it is from 2013 and a bit outdated.

http://oct2013.lakechapalareporter.com/seguro-popular-universal-health-care-in-mexico/

http://oct2013.lakechapalareporter.com/signing-up-for-seguro-popular-health-insurance/

http://oct2013.lakechapalareporter.com/seguro-popular-part-3-hospital-registration/

 

An article about  the SP Jocotepec hospital in the Guadalajara Reporter:

http://www.theguadalajarareporter.com/index.php/news/news/lake-chapala/46055-seguro-popular-patients-to-receive-free-treatment-at-jocotepec-s-fully-equipped-community-hospital

This Guadalajara reporter article states non Seguro Popular member patients can pay to use the facility also on a fee schedule and be reimbursed if they have private medical insurance.

 

 

 

 

 

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On ‎09‎/‎08‎/‎2016 at 0:06 PM, bdmowers said:

AlanMexicali had answered the question in general for SP hospitals. I asked the question of Joco because I had heard the Jocotepec SP hospital was a kind of community hospital in addition to being an SP hospital and would treat people on this basis (oh!  the stories one hears in this land). Guess I`ll have to go there and find out!

This Guadalajara reporter article in my above post states non Seguro Popular member patients can pay to use the facility also on a fee schedule and be reimbursed if they have private medical insurance. This is what dbmowers has asked about and it appears anyone can go there and possibly non legal residents such as visitors to the area. Good to know. I am now wondering if all SP community hospital or even all SP hospitals are doing this without the 90 day deal for not having the proper documentation to get a 3 year contract.?

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6 minutes ago, AlanMexicali said:

This Guadalajara reporter article in my above post states non Seguro Popular member patients can pay to use the facility also on a fee schedule and be reimbursed if they have private medical insurance. This is what dbmowers has asked about and it appears anyone can posible non legal residence as in visitors to the área. Good to know.

The Guad  Reporter article states "Care will be available to individuals who are not enrolled in the (Seguro Popular) program payable according to a standard scale of recuperation fees".  So, this I believe would allow anyone regardless of residency status to use the hospital in a non-emergency basis (and also in an emergency basis as well).  However, the writer in the Lake Chapala Reporter does not indicate any such thing and seems to say that the hospital is a regular Seguro Popular hospital requiring a residency status (Temporal or  Permanente).  So there seems still to be some confusion. Obviously, a visit to talk an administrator at the Joco hospital is in order.  The Joco hospital IS an SP hospital and there is indeed a very large insignia on the outside of the hospital indicating so.  What is in question is whether it has taken on a larger mandate for its services compared to other SP hospitals.  There are probably hundreds of expats in the lakeside area who have no residency status, who have lived in and contributed in many ways to their communities for many years who would like to know the answer to this question.  Next time I`m in Joco I will visit this hospital and try to find this answer.  A "yes, the hospital serves those without legal residency" answer does rather beg the same question about other SP hospitals.

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1 hour ago, AlanMexicali said:

This Guadalajara reporter article in my above post states non Seguro Popular member patients can pay to use the facility also on a fee schedule and be reimbursed if they have private medical insurance. This is what dbmowers has asked about and it appears anyone can go there and possibly non legal residents such as visitors to the area. Good to know. I am now wondering if all SP community hospital or even all SP hospitals are doing this without the 90 day deal for not having the proper documentation to get a 3 year contract.?

"anyone can go" I wonder if this includes people who have IMSS?

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27 minutes ago, cedros said:

"anyone can go" I wonder if this includes people who have IMSS?

I have not seen an exact statement about this but I believe that the hospital simply takes in patients, no questions asked, gives them service then provides the patient with a bill.

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Wouldn't it be nice to know exactly what the situation is? It could give peace of mind to many people if what bdmowers says above is true.

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32 minutes ago, cedros said:

"anyone can go" I wonder if this includes people who have IMSS?

I don´t see why not. The rule is you cannot enrol in any other Mexican socialized medicine system when you are enrolled in another. If paying for service you are not enrolling in the SP.

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33 minutes ago, AlanMexicali said:

I don´t see why not. The rule is you cannot enrol in any other Mexican socialized medicine system when you are enrolled in another. If paying for service you are not enrolling in the SP.

Interesting point. I often what might happen to me as I live alone and I'm old. That new SP would be perfect for me as I live nearby but I belong to IMSS.

It would be much easier for me to return to Canada where I would get free health care but I don't want to. Getting seriously sick here is always a real concern to me. I have Medivac insurance to get flown to Canada but..... 

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I don't how to get this forward, as far as signing more seniors up. Like BD says there are many seniors here who were completely unaware how much the cost of private health care has risen in this country. A good friend and neighbour is going through this right now. These are people who went through wars and hard times, have given so much to the country they left behind, also much to their new country of choice - Mexico. These are tough people, can certainly withstand a few days in hospital without Netflix and a private room. Typically, their only mistake, was moving to Mexico, burying stress, eating healthy, walking, volunteering, have all added many so more years to their life than they anticipated. They quite frankly, had not thought they would live this long, and I know many live through many painful and stressful times here, going without medical care or medicines because they simply don't think they can afford it. The Head of Seguro Popular in Jalisco has invited them to join (although in Spanish), the President of Mexico has invited them to join. How do we get seniors to signup to Seguro Popular, convincing them they are not receiving an unfair benefit, or entering a dirty, shabby hospital with crappy doctors? How do we get a list of vetted translators/caregivers if needed? We could tell a white lie, and say that Obama recommended to ENT that Mexico provide public health coverage American seniors in Mexico, in return for public medical coverage offered to many Mexicans, some illegal, in the U.S.A. For all I know this could very well be true.

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2 hours ago, bdmowers said:

I have not seen an exact statement about this but I believe that the hospital simply takes in patients, no questions asked, gives them service then provides the patient with a bill.

 

You can go to the Joco hospital if you have IMSS but SP won't pay because you cannot have SP and IMSS at the same time. IMSS won't pay for treatment outside of an IMSS facility, but you can pay out of pocket. 

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1 hour ago, cedros said:

Interesting point. I often what might happen to me as I live alone and I'm old. That new SP would be perfect for me as I live nearby but I belong to IMSS.

It would be much easier for me to return to Canada where I would get free health care but I don't want to. Getting seriously sick here is always a real concern to me. I have Medivac insurance to get flown to Canada but..... 

 

The Joco community hospital will not treat you for a major illness or conditions like heart attack or stroke. They will send you to Guadalajara. It is mainly a maternity hospital and treats minor illnesses. It does surgeries like hysterectomies and gallbladder. Cancer treatments, heart attacks, and strokes go to Guadalajara.

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7 minutes ago, Joco said:

The Joco community hospital will not treat you for a major illness or conditions like heart attack or stroke. They will send you to Guadalajara. It is mainly a maternity hospital and treats minor illnesses. It does surgeries like hysterectomies and gallbladder. Cancer treatments, heart attacks, and strokes go to Guadalajara.

It seems that the Jocotepec Seguro Popular community hospital, according to the Guadalajara Reporter article, will treat you for a fee. The question still to be answered is if they do not have a treatment for what you have will they refer you to a larger more full service SP hospital for treatment and will that full service SP hospital take you in and then will they tend to you and charge you a fee? Is it limted to certain illnesses etc.?

 

My wife has never heard of any SP hospital doing this except in the cases I mentioned in my above numerous posts. She retired from the Secretaria de Salud as a top administrator in the Seguro Popular for our state [SLP]  2 1/2 years ago. She might not know the latest policies but can find out if inclined to do so.

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On ‎06‎/‎08‎/‎2016 at 0:50 PM, AlanMexicali said:

  If not well off and disclosing it verbally when enrolling when they ask the the head of household their own financial and living conditions questionare it will be free and is free at present for about 98% of the families, so far. There is no percentage of fees only a yearly enrollment fee if applicable for a 3 year contract that doesn´t change until you renew after 3 years and are given the verbal questionare again.

I was reading the Seguro Popular rules and head of families get a  3 year contract for their family when they are fee free but the ones who pay a yearly fee only get a 1 year contract for their family - not 3 years as I had previously thought.

 

Google Translation:

"In order to have a complete picture of the obstacles that arise for
effective access to Seguro Popular from the experience of families, the study
 foresaw the analysis of the whole process of operation of the program, from
the requirements for membership until resolution of the condition.
A first element of analysis was the affiliation, considered the condition
minimum accessibility to health services. In this regard, the first
problem is that families often do not have the necessary resources
to obtain the documents required to join the Seguro
Popular. This problem occurs most frequently in
rural areas where services are issuing documents
away from the communities and no information is available and accesible as to
how to process the documents. Migration also affects the process of
membership, since in many cases can not join the complete family
 because one or more members are working elsewhere
or any of the members are not born in the state or country and do not have
documents proving Mexican nationality. It was also observed
that membership becomes more difficult for those living in communities
other than where they were registered [born - a copy of a birth certificate is aquired]."

http://www.coneval.org.mx/Informes/Evaluacion/Impacto/Acceso y Uso Efectivo.pdf

 

This is a huge problem when families have no documentation and I think it is why people can get service in SP facilities on a fee basis or sign up for a 90 day contract and I have read some news articles mention the ones without birth certificates, CURPs use the SP on a fee basis and don´t bother getting their documents in order for the whole family or part of it and SP just lets them pay reasonable fees for service. One article stated DIF has a program to help these people for free to get documents to get enrolled in the SP for the last several years. Another article stated the SP is trying to get rural and urban poor signed up by letting them use the SP on a fee basis so they know what it is and how it works hoping they will get it together to enrol. This might be the policy at community and full service SP hospitals as it is with rural or maybe not only rural clinics of Centro de Salud [Seguro Popular] nationwide.

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14 hours ago, AlanMexicali said:

The question still to be answered is if they do not have a treatment for what you have will they refer you to a larger more full service SP hospital for treatment and will that full service SP hospital take you in and then will they tend to you and charge you a fee? Is it limted to certain illnesses etc.?

In the case of the Joco SP hospital not being able to continue to treat a patient after their first presenting at the hospital and needing to transfer the patient to another SP hospital, if the condition for the patient is an emergency, i.e. heart attack, then one might assume the hospital the patient is being tranferred to would take the patient on an emergency basis per normal SP hospital rules as you reported, Alan.  This then would be true for other emergency / life threatening illnesses but your open question, Alan, for other illnesses is still in play. 

Joco the poster has said that the Joco SP hospital only treats maternity issues and minor issues. It would be good if someone could detail which illnesses and situations the Joco hospital actually is able to treat.  Perhaps another topic should be started for this but these then could be compared to the services at the private fee-for-service Ajijic Clinic hospital which does surgery in some cases and can accomodate overnight stays in in-hospital rooms to get a more complete picture of what is available for Lake Chapala residents.

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If you live at Lakeside, in any location, are old and have an emergency, you had better have a plan in place with your MD and transportation to Guadalajara.  There is that “golden hour“ to consider.  In the case of heart attacks, you should really know what to do to minimize the effects; what medication to take immediately & call your cardiologist on his cell phone to meet you at the pre-selected emergency room.  That has saved my bacon....four times!  If you are at Lakeside and do not have a cardiologist, even if you seem healthy, get one, have a full check-up and do it at least every 6-12 months. Surprises can often be fatal for the unprepared.

Without such a plan, I suggest that you get to either the Ajijic CLinic or Clinica Maskaras & hope to get stabilized there.  Weekends are a bad time for emergencies.

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16 hours ago, AlanMexicali said:

It seems that the Jocotepec Seguro Popular community hospital, according to the Guadalajara Reporter article, will treat you for a fee. The question still to be answered is if they do not have a treatment for what you have will they refer you to a larger more full service SP hospital for treatment and will that full service SP hospital take you in and then will they tend to you and charge you a fee? Is it limted to certain illnesses etc.?

 

My wife has never heard of any SP hospital doing this except in the cases I mentioned in my above numerous posts. She retired from the Secretaria de Salud as a top administrator in the Seguro Popular for our state [SLP]  2 1/2 years ago. She might not know the latest policies but can find out if inclined to do so.

 

The Joco hospital is a community hospital,  not an SP hospital. It has an arrangement with SP to accept payments but it was not built by SP. The name Security Popular is not on the building and I do not think I have seen it in literature or in the building.

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