Health care in Latin America: Improving, with business opportunities growing

Millions more people in Latin America now have access to heath care, thanks to an expanding middle class, increased government investment and innovations in technology including telemedicine.

That means big opportunities for business, from selling pharmaceuticals in the region to offering training programs for doctors or even insuring Americans to travel south for treatment in Latin America.

Those were among the highlights of WorldCity’s Global Connections meeting held July 25, when a panel of executives discussed health care in the Latin American region with an audience of about 100 people.

“This is probably the most exciting time in health care in Latin America in the last 20 years,” said panelist Jose Aguirrechu, principal partner of Agora Partners, a consulting business with a focus on strategy, execution and operational efficiencies in health care across the Americas.

Even developed nations are looking to Latin America now to learn how to better stretch money for care.

The United States spends about 14 percent of its economic output on health care, and Latin American nations spend 4 percent to 6 percent of their GDP – with improving results, said panelist Edvard Philipson, vice president for the Latin American region at Ferring Pharmaceuticals.

As in the United States, health care in Latin America nowadays is becoming less “intuitive” and more “empirical,” based more on data, Aguirrechu and others said. To sell U.S. or European goods, for example, Latin American nations increasingly demand studies on patients in their own countries. Studies conducted abroad no longer suffice.

Research is expanding too into the needs of doctors and patients in the region, said panelist JD Puentes, president and CEO of AMK Healthcare Latin America, a partner company of McCann Worldwide. A doctor and entrepreneur, he launched AMK to offer medical education services to consumers.

A recent survey of some 2,000 doctors in a half-dozen Latin American nations found that doctors want three main things: fewer representatives visiting them, unbiased information on products and more technology. Patients instead want “to put it in one word: love,” said Puentes. Patients want more empathy, time and explanation from doctors, including straight talk with less medical jargon.

Medical payers such as insurance companies, meanwhile, seek to trim rising costs. Some are asking doctors to come work directly for them, said Philipson. Plus, they’re pushing for electronic records.

Telemedicine: Training doctors, helping rural residents

What role can telemedicine play in Latin America?, asked attendee Nelson Penalver, owner of Logistical Outsourcing of Miami.

As regulations tighten for pharmaceutical companies to sponsor doctors to attend conferences, teleconferencing can offer physicians a chance to meet and learn from afar, said Ferring’s Philipson.

Telemedicine also lets medical specialists in big cities confer with patients in rural areas, who otherwise would lack access to that health expertise anywhere close, said Puentes.

In addition, telemedicine helps medical businesses extend the reach of their brand beyond their host cities, as hospital Albert Einstein now does from Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulol, said Aguirrechu.

Opportunities for doctor training, certification services

Specialization helps cut medical costs. What opportunities are there for specialist businesses such as orthopedic urgent-care chains to grow in Latin America?, asked auidence member Alejandro Badia, chief medical officer of ORTHONow, a network of orthopedic urgent-care centers that includes franchises.

“There’s an opportunity for training of specialists for those chains,” said Aguirrechu.

And there’s a need for more certifications of specialists, added Philipson. Certifications of more doctors and hospitals would help U.S. insurance companies send more U.S. patients for treatment in Latin America, where costs generally are lower than in the United states, panelists said.

Gaining access to Latin American markets

Still, some medical firms may shy away from the Latin American region because of concerns over corruption and other hurdles to access the region’s nearly 600 million residents, attendees said.

Yet issues of market access are changing too, said panelists.

Governments and payers in Latin America now seek more sophisticated information about products developed abroad, said Ferring’s Philipson.

“You have to bring all the data to prove not only that it’s an innovative product bit also that it’s cheaper” than other alternatives, he said. Indeed, Ferring is looking to hire more “pharma-economists” in the region to meet growing data needs in the region, said Philipson.

Regulations also are getting stricter for products in the region.

“If you have a package insert but not the right language on it, you can’t sell it,” said Aguirrechu.

Health care: Half-full or half-empty?

Still, there’s no denying corruption in the health insurance industry in the region, where the structure of premiums are “opaque,” said attendee John Price, managing director in Miami of Americas Market Intelligence. Price said his research has found health insurance to be “the most corrupt business in Latin America.”

Worse yet, millions living in Latin America still lack access to health care, while governments waste money on projects they never finish and officials line their pockets, said an impassioned Alberto Darsa, director of accounting and finance at Miami’s Skeletal Dynamics, a maker of orthopedic devices.

“We’re focusing on what can make us money, not what will give health care to poor people,” said audience member Darsa.

It’s not hopeless, countered Puentes.

Both business and better health care go together. And governments are investing to improve health care, often in public-private partnerships. In the past five years or so, infant mortality has fallen roughly by half in Brazil and in Mexico – to give just one example, he said.

“Things are changing in our countries. Don’t cry,” Puentes told Darsa. “Let’s do things. Let’s change things.”

What’s more, Latin America leads in some areas of health care, added Puentes.

For HIV/AIDs treatment, Brazil is considered the best country in the world. “And who’s second? I don’t know tampoco [either],” he joked in Spanglish, sending the audience into peals of laughter and easing tension around the debate.

Aguirrechu offered a hopeful view of the future.

“Your snapshots are real,” he said of Darsa’s portraits of instances of corruption. “But let’s watch the movie – because the changes are still happening.”

Global Connections is one of six event series organized by media company WorldCity to bring together executives in the greater Miami area on international business topics.

The Global series is sponsored by Florida International University School of Business, public relations firm Edelman, real estate firm Waterford at Blue Lagoon and air-conditioner maker Daikin.

The next meeting of Global Connections is set for Sept. 26 on the topic,” Social Media: What’s Changed Since Yesterday.”