Radioscopy to a business that bills $ 500 million per year

About thirty companies that offer prepaid medicine and medical insurances in Ecuador must submit, to the Ministry of Health, the registration of their clients and the portfolio of services, within 30 days after a new law for this sector starts, which will replace the current, enacted in 1998.

It will be the beginning of a control and state regulation process to a business that has experienced sustained growth in recent years.

They are, in round numbers, one million Ecuadorians who are affiliated today to a health services plan provided by these companies, according to a study of the portfolio in the industry.

“The years of dollarization of the economy meant consolidation and expansion of this sector which, so far, has wide leeway because its regulation is weak,” says to Expreso economist Pablo Dávalos Aguilar, a university professor and investigator.

The market for prepaid medicine grew from a turnover of 279 million in 2011, about $ 450 million in 2014, an average of 9.7% annually, according to a study of the private health insurance sector that Davalos collected in a recently published book.