It Takes More Than Six Years to Deliver Disability Pensions
<p style="text-align:justify">An AGN report says that the medical commissions that depended on the Superintendence of AFJP exceeded the anticipated deadlines, near the four months, to dictate the incapacity of the workers. The protocols that determined the diseases came late and in some places there were no providers. Today, the system is under the orbit of the SRT.</p>
The National Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) found that the medical commissions that depended on the AFJP Superintendence took up to more than six years to grant disability pensions to its members, which procedures were expected to last for about four months.
The inspection body pointed out that up to September 2007 these commissions had accumulated 6,563 labor files and 14,150 pension plans, that is, those awaiting the application of laws on the disabled, the blind or elderly. Of these totals, 5,522 of the first group (84.1%) and 4,923 of the second group (34.8%) exceeded the deadlines set in the "Commitment Letter to the Citizen" that established compliance with these procedures in 134 days for And 105 days for pensioners.
The Superintendence of AFJP had 38 peripheral medical commissions (CMP) and a central (CMC) in the City of Buenos Aires. The AGN adds that, of the sample analyzed, "the oldest unresolved records are 131 of the CMPs of the segment 2002/2005, and 2373 of the CMC of (period) 2003/2005, unidentified by year of seniority".
The invalidity proceedings were initiated in the CMP, which determined whether the members could access the benefit. To retire by this modality, the workers had to register a 66% - or more - of incapacity. During the analysis period of the AGN, 50,822 work files were admitted to the CMPs, of which 6,755 were appealed to the Central Medical Commission, in order to review the assigned percentages of incapacity. The delays that the Audit was able to identify correspond to the opinions issued by the CMC in the period January-August 2007: in that sample it was observed that 337 cases "came from appeals of old data", with five and even six years of delay. "In addition, nine files were detected with four years of delay, 51 with three years, 151 with two years and 164 that already record a year of delay," said the report approved this year on data for 2007.
According to the manual of procedure procedures, the doctors of the commissions had to comply with the practices and minimum studies required by the protocols of each pathology to measure how much they affected the patients. However, the professionals told the AGN that they did not achieve homogeneity of criteria to assign percentages of invalidity due to the "inability to compare opinions of the affiliates". For the Audit, the protocols registered "extemporaneity and insufficiency," in fact, "since 2007, there were five protocols:" neurology, cardiology, traumatology and AIDS, and transplantation and oncology, which were added to the one of psychiatry, in force since 2004.
On the other hand, the control body verified that by September of 2007 several jurisdictions had no medical providers: Posadas, Neuquen, Bahía Blanca, Viedma and La Rioja. In addition, in other places, such as Ushuaia, Comodoro Rivadavia and San Luis, there was only one provider: "Such a situation could affect the quality of the opinions, having to be based solely on the studies provided by affiliates and not being able to conduct inter consultations if they were Necessary, "the AGN explained. With this picture, the then Superintendence of AFJP called for a public tender to add more providers. According to the original list to which the auditors agreed, the agreed providers in the system were 532, "of which, as of September 2007, only 131 were bound", including the winners of a tender made in 2004. The report states that the procurement process began on October 28, 2003, "while the purchase orders corresponding to the provision of services were issued on May 22, 2007. In other words, the audit process completed, the bidding process took three years and a half."
With the elimination of the capitalization regime and the unification of pensions and pensions in a state-managed system, the AFJP Superintendence began a phase of dissolution, transfer and liquidation of its assets. Meanwhile the medical commissions passed by decree to operate under the orbit of the Superintendence of Occupational Risks (SRT, for its acronym in Spanish).