90% Italians ask for more protection, 1 in 3 interested in health policies

Rome, February 2 (Adnkronos Health)

The pandemic has changed the approach of Italians to care needs. “Two out of 3 show a strong concern for the protection of their health from the pandemic. 90.8% of Italians require greater protection in the event of a new health emergency. Over 1 in 3 of citizens is interested in responding to this need through a health policy (+ 50% compared to the 2019 survey) “. This is what emerges from the last”Report on public, private and intermediated health-beyond Covid-19, a second pillar for health protection“, carried out by Intesa Sanpaolo Rbm Salute and the Censis Foundation on a sample of 10 thousand Italians.

“The ‘lesson learned’ of the pandemic shows how essential it is to have a system of additional safeguards to those of the National Health Service (NHS) that allows not so much to have the reimbursement of expenses to be incurred outside the NHS but which allows accessibility to these treatments, therefore an organizational fact of availability of treatment through those circuits that the insurance sector has been making available for some time as a fundamental complement to health policies “, he explains to Adnkronos Health Marco Vecchietti, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Intesa Sanpaolo Rbm Salute . “So in reality it is the availability of an alternative circuit of health facilities, of treatment paths the element that in some way has become of fundamental interest more than the fact of having, through insurance, only and exclusively the reimbursement of those treatments that must be carried out in private facilities, because, as we know, Italians have preferred to cope with the so-called personal bet with respect to this need “.

Another fact that emerges from the report is that for 93% of Italians the health system will have to change profoundly. “The pandemic, on the one hand, has certainly entered a path of awareness that was already present in the Italian population with respect to the importance of the presence alongside the main protection, that of the NHS, also of the availability of private healthcare – continues Vecchietti – It has entered this path but with innovative elements derived from this precisely emergency, new, particular situation that we found ourselves experiencing because it has been understood, for example, and it is perhaps the first time, that it emerges with such great clarity, as not it is enough to use private healthcare as a sort of ‘health ATM’ which means that private healthcare cannot be used in the face of an emergency as an ‘on demand’ tool but in reality the fundamental element is to have of an organized system that allows access to treatment in a parallel and alternative way to the NHS “.

“In the face of the emergency – continues the CEO and general manager of Intesa Sanpaolo Rbm Salute – traditional care pathways tend to be saturated and all emergency management oriented, on protection from the spread of the pandemic and therefore can no longer guarantee the continuity, for example, of the protection of chronic diseases, rather than of the assistance paths of the non self-sufficient, the most fragile, the elderly. So – observes Vecchietti – for the first time, citizens have found that the economic availability, let’s say simple and simple, is not enough in itself to guarantee a surplus of treatment opportunities. This is because, faced with these emergency situations, even the same private health structures risk becoming inaccessible or not equally accessible as in an ordinary period faced with these emergency situations “.

The Intesa Sanpaolo Rbm Salute – Censis survey shows that there was a 50% increase, compared to the same survey carried out in 2019, in the number of citizens who declared themselves willing, soon, to take out a health policy. “Consider that over 1/3 of the interviewees declared this availability and we are talking about a growth of 50% compared to the same figure recorded in 2019 – Vecchietti points out – This testifies once again that it is not so much the additional economic availability that the citizen is looking for greater protection in the health field. Therefore, an alternative treatment path, the possibility of having a more personalized response, perhaps with tools and paths of telemedicine, tele-assistance, the possibility of not being alone , not to discontinue their path of chronic care management “.

Do the possibilities offered by the Recovery Fund to change the NHS for the better, as repeatedly announced by Minister Speranza, leave open hope for an innovation in the direction you have traced? “I believe that the Recovery Fund represents a great opportunity, because it represents the opportunity to have potentially investable resources also structurally in the health system of our country – replies Vecchietti – We know that already in the VII Rbm-Censis Report, we had identified as a need additional resources for the health system about 25 billion in the five-year period leading substantially to 2025. This situation had been identified in our analyzes as a necessary situation to be able to intercept the citizen’s care needs with a level of coverage that was adequate with respect to the needs considering the increase in the chronicity rate, the increase in longevity, the increase in the dependency rate, also the growing diffusion of cases of multi-chronicity as well as a whole series of innovations that, both at the pharmaceutical level and in the surgical and diagnostic path , had intervened in the health field “.

“So the point is to hopefully identify a space within these investments for two measures that we consider potentially very important to support the diffusion of integrative health – suggests Vecchietti – that can guarantee, through accessibility for a greater number of citizens of these solutions, then an indirect relief on the national health service of the pressure especially in the out-of-hospital field and on the other that can allow in the face of emergency situations such as the one we have just experienced and that we are, still experiencing, can allow alternative routes to citizens. Alternative paths which then indirectly would also end up facilitating the emergency response which is obviously the direct if not exclusive responsibility of the NHS “.

“From this point of view there are two fundamental levers: supplementary health is prevalently widespread in the world of dependent workThis is because it has a fiscal system that is totally built to facilitate companies and workers in the activation of forms of supplementary health. Outside of this tax model – specifies the CEO and general manager of Intesa Sanpaolo Rbm Salute – also the other categories of work, I am thinking of the self-employed, freelancers, have no tax relief, and it is clear that in the absence of this tax relief, in a context in which citizens are used to betting on their own with respect to health risk, it becomes very difficult to increase the spread of supplementary health “.

“So an intervention, albeit contained, in financial terms because we are talking about the order of 2-3 billion indicatively as an extension rather than I would say expansion of the tax benefit from the world of dependent work to all other categories of income earners, therefore to all subjects who submit a tax return, which in Italy are 40 million out of 60 million citizens, would certainly guarantee – he argues – a strong lever to push the citizen to act ‘ex ante’ in risk management and not to to bet on one’s own – he recalls – taking into account that the pandemic has clearly shown us that in the face of these phenomena there is no bet that can be won because even those who are more economically gifted are faced with the problem of rationing health supplies, closure of some medical specialties and so on “.

“And then there is a second fundamental issue that would also require structural funding, albeit one-off – underlines Vecchietti – which is that of financing of an information and dissemination campaign among citizens regarding the importance of supplementary healthcare, to the opportunities that the latter can make available, to a correct disclosure of the role that integrative health has which is not, how to say, of reducing the State’s protection in the health field but rather a guarantee so that the NHS can do their work is better “, highlights Vecchietti.

“Considering that more than a third of Italian citizens postponed their treatments during the period of the pandemic, we are talking about over 300 thousand hospitalizations in a year, 10 million specialist visits, 13 million diagnostic tests – recalls Vecchietti – it is clear that, when all this postponement will start up again, all these needs will reappear as an additional load on the NHS “.

“In my opinion, from this point of view – he concludes – a useful role of support and timing could also be identified of the habitual levels of these tools that would justify even more a tax incentive, was also a temporally limited incentive; I believe that the element it is essential to bring citizens into this logic “.

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