According to a report by the Audit General’s Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish), the Superintendence of Health Services (SSS) have given health care to the deceased. The watchdog received this information after crossing the register of members of the "Super", as it is known, with information from the National Registry of Persons.

334 beneficiaries to health care were found in the SSS after his death. Most cases are recorded in the period 2008-2010 and are from the National Institute of Social Services for Pensioners, also known as PAMI.

However, the AGN recognized that the databases of the agencies are not automatically updated, therefore it offered them a "tolerance" period of six months from the death of a beneficiary to their discharge in the "Super" to measure the relevance of their findings.

The issue was that "more than 65% of the beneficiaries were discharged from the Superintendence six months after their deaths and there were five recorded cases of people discharged 10 years after their deaths,” the report states.

From this data, the watchdog noted the "importance of an up to date Register of Beneficiaries, taking into account that it’s the Superintendence way of determining the matrix for Risk Assessment for the distribution of Grant Nominees (SANE)." The SANE is the last station of the Solidarity Redistribution Fund, money contributed by the health care companies and the SSS, intended to ensure medical coverage for the most vulnerable sectors and is divided between the health providers (see here).

But that's not all. The audit also recommended the Super the "implementation of data validation software to identify uncompleted gaps and duplication." In the list of beneficiaries the health entity found that "5,726 records have their identification number as zero, 3,097 records have the date they were added to the health care provider as zero, and 17 beneficiaries have their added to health care date the same in two are discharged the same day in two different health companies.”

On the National Register of Health Care Companies "duplication" was detected. There are at least 36 repeated abbreviations. The auditors showed that “OSA” which is the Actors Health Care as well as the Air Crew’s health care, and "OSPE" is the provider for the Petroleum workers and Notaries. But the most versatile is "OSPA", used for sugar, airmen, and port workers in the City of Mar del Plata.

Claims

Moreover, the audit took a sample of 259,271 claims of the beneficiaries of the system.

From this analysis it appears that "there is no record on file that shows a solution that must be issued by the Health Insurance Agent once the study phase of the claim is complete” and that "in 53% of cases, the receptor complaint (the Superintendent) doesn’t hand out a claim number”.