Costo de la atención prenatal: Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social

Abstract

Objective: To estimate the cost of prenatal care. Methods: Cost study in patients of the largest social security institution in Mexico, the Mexican Institute for Social Security (IMSS). A total of 402 women randomly selected after delivery. Type of service and intensity of use during the prenatal care were identified and related to the cost of attention, which was estimated by productivity and microcosting adjusted departmentalization. Analysis included means, percentages and confidence intervals; cost was calculated by type of department. Results: The departments with highest percentage of use were the family medicine department with 85.8% (95%CI: 82.4-89.29) and preventive medicine with 85.3% (95%CI: 81.8-88.8). Approximately 8.2% of the visits to prenatal care services were associated with urinary tract infection. In laboratory, the most frequently performed study was urinalysis with 25.2%. The mean cost at primary care level was US$139.78 (95%CI: 125.42-154.01) and the most expensive departments were family medicine and the laboratory at US$69.93 (95%CI 64.72-75.13) and US$32.73 (95%CI 30.26-35.15), respectively. Conclusion: The prenatal cost at primary care level is low, the most important are in family medicine and laboratory. There is no single method for cost estimation, thus, result comparisons are questionable. However, it cannot be denied that, within a market structure, cost estimates are the tools that allow entry into the market and confrontation of competitors, and from this perspective, the comparison is valid.