Today was a very full day of lectures and hospital visits in the Buenos Aires area. We began the day at 9:30 am with a short bus ride to hear a lecture from Flor Ledesma, a leader at the ASE Obra Social which is a union for executives in Argentina. People like CEOs, CFOs, and other executives at their respective companies would be members of this union in Argentina. This union is one of the largest and most powerful in the country because of the class and quantity of members in ASE. Ms. Ledesma did an excellent job describing how Obras Sociales function in the healthcare system as a health insurance provider and delivery system in some cases. Obras are very hard to understand because it is unlike anything we have in the United States. They are not like a private, prepaid plan similar to the US and they are different from the free public system in Argentina.
This lecture was very helpful because of the discussion on how money flows through Obras Sociales and their role in the entire system and providing benefits for their members. The way it works is that 3% of the employee salary is contributed and 6% by the company to make a total contribution of 9% to a union member’s social benefit plans. This 9% can then be used in three ways: it can be sent to a private plan who contracts with the Obra Social to provide coverage, it can be sent to the Obra Social’s delivery system, or it can be sent to the insurance plan directly run by the Obra Social which is most profitable to the union. Ms. Ledesma did a good job explaining how Obra Sociales function as intermediaries with all the money and they decide where to send it based on the member’s preferences.
After the lecture by Flor Ledesma, we went to ICBA which a private cardiovascular institute owned by Swiss Medical. At ICBA we received a lecture by Pablo Morales who is the chief nursing officer at the institute. He discussed the role of nurses in the institute and the specialized care they provide which makes it one of the top institutes in the country. We also received a lecture from one of the directors at the facilities who gave us a background on the institute, their core values and mission, and their cutting edge technology that separates them from the rest. After the lectures, we were able to see the technology firsthand and tour the facilities and a few of the operating rooms which was very cool.
We finished the day by going to Malba which is a modern art museum in Buenos Aires. It had many cool works painted by Frida Khalo and it was all a private collection owned by a rich business man. The museum also had interesting pieces on the history of Brazil and the lives of many Brazilians in the past. It was a fun visit that gave more context to the culture of South America and Argentina.
