Universalização do acesso à saúde e regulação dos planos privados de assistência à saúde: a atuação regulatória da ANS como instrumento de harmonia contratual e viabilização do papel suplementar da iniciativa privada na efetivação do direito social à saúde

While essential to human nature, health and life have been protected since ancient times by various areas of knowledge, particularly by the Law, given its dynamics within the regulation of social interactions. In Brazil, health has been granted major importance by the Federal Constitution of 1988, which, disrupting the dictatorial authoritarianism, inaugurating a Social State and focusing on the values of freedom and human dignity, raises health to the condition of a social right, marked predominantly by an obligational bias directed, primarily, to the State, through the enforcement of public policies. Although, given the limitation of the State action to the reserve for contingencies, it turns clear that an universalizing access to public health is impossible, seen that the high cost of medical provisions hinders the State to meet all the health needs of the rightholders. As a result of the inefficiency of the State, the effort of the Constituent Assembly of 1988 in creating a hybrid health system becomes nuclear, which, marked by the possibility of exploration of healthcare by the private initiative, assigns to the private enterprise a key role in supplementing the public health system, especially through the offer of health insurance plans. At this point, however, it becomes clear that health provisions rendered by the private agents are not unlimited, which involves discussions about services and procedures that should be excluded from the contractual coverage, for purposes of sectoral balance, situation which draws the indispensability of deliberations between Fundamental Rights on one hand, related to the protection of health and life, and contractual principles on the other hand, connected to the primacy of private autonomy. At this point, the importance of the regulation undertaken by the ANS, Brazilian National Health Agency, appears primordial, which, by means of its seized broad functions, considerable autonomy and technical discretion, has conditions to implement an effective control towards the harmonization of the regulatory triangle, the stability and development of the supplementary health system and, consequently, towards the universalization of the right to health, within constitutional contours. According to this, the present essay, resorting to a broad legislative, doctrinal and jurisprudential study, concludes that economic regulation over the private healthcare sector, when legitimately undertaken, provides progress and stability to the intervening segment and, besides, turns healthcare universalization feasible, in a way that it can not be replaced efficiently by any other State function.

Ações dos agentes comunitários de saúde diante do usuário da estratégia saúde da família com estados depressivos no Município de Abaiara-CE-BR

Brazilian health public assistance is going through two Reforms, Sanitary and Psychiatric, and through these the assistance is guaranteed in the three levels: primary, secondary and tertiary. Thus, mental health assistance should be offered since preventive cares until the ones that demand larger technological apparatus. Programs like Health Community Agent's Program (HCAP) and Family Health Strategy (FHS), besides increasing the services coverage, have been making possible the system reorientation in the meaning of integrality, universalization and equity. Thus, united intervention of mental health team and FHS can offer several benefits to the population, providing assistance and follow-up to patients with mental disorder. It was aimed to assess health community agents facing the user of Family Health Strategy in depressive state. This quanti-qualitative study took place in the municipal district of Abaiara-CE. Semi-structured interview was applied with health community agents and Beck Depression Inventory with the users registered in Family Health Strategy. It was verified that among the 64 users interviewed, 12.5% didn't present symptoms of depression, 10.9% presented symptoms of light depression, 14.1% symptoms of moderate depression and 62.5% symptoms of serious depression. For the 22 health community agents interviewed, they all reported the existence of people with symptoms of depression in their personal micro-areas, being difficult to work with them, once the FHS team is not qualified to work with mental health problems. It was verified that the Municipal district doesn't have specialized professionals, making difficult the routing and treatment. Based on these results, it was concluded that in spite of the articulation of mental health with FHS is necessary and benefactor to the population, it still doesn't exist, worsening the situation, mainly in small Municipal districts, once they don't have mental health services. Thus, the population is exposed and without follow-up, which allows the identification of installed diseases and with gravity, like depression, because there are no prevention and control activities. It is recommended, due the extreme need, the elaboration and implantation of a mental health program in these municipal districts, articulated with FHS

Análise dos custos assistenciais de uma operadora de plano de saúde no Brasil

The relevance of rising healthcare costs is a main topic in complementary health companies in Brazil. In 2011, these expenses consumed more than 80% of the monthly health insurance in Brazil. Considering the administrative costs, it is observed that the companies operating in this market work, on average, at the threshold between profit and loss. This paper presents results after an investigation of the welfare costs of a health plan company in Brazil. It was based on the KDD process and explorative Data Mining. A diversity of results is presented, such as data summarization, providing compact descriptions of the data, revealing common features and intrinsic observations. Among the key findings was observed that a small portion of the population is responsible for the most demanding of resources devoted to health care

Saúde mental na estratégia saúde da família: notas cartográficas sobre processos de trabalho em saúde

This study aims to map the working process in the health area starting from the meeting between the family and health teams and mental trouble carriers./MTC. The area of research was the Family Health Unit of Ozeas Sampaio, which is located in the county of Teresina-PI. As regard to the methodology procedure, we used a semi-structured interview timetable, aimed to detail the care practices, admittance and diagnostics that those teams realize with their users. Three teams of eleven workers each were interviewed. There was a doctor, a nurse and two health community agents in each team. The other tools we used were a camp logbook, in which we wrote down some informal dialogs, daily observations and feelings of the unit, and also the accompaniment of the staffs in house calls as well as the weekly meetings in the unit. Those meetings allowed us the construction of two analytic axes: 1) description of the establishment (Family Health Unit) of the organization, (municipal foundation of health and the service network), and the institutions and practice of health. 2) Analysis of the meetings between the worker and the user of Mental Trouble Carriers. In the first axis, we verified the repetition of the working logic focused on jobs in the hospital with the maintenance of the hierarchical relations between worker and the work processes which dissociate management and watchfulness in health care. We identified the lack of physical structure, the lack of self-confidence of the worker in the attention of the mental health care. At the second axis, we assess that the meetings, at the Family Health Unit (FHU) or at the dwelling of the users cause nuisance, discomfort and anxiety to the workers because they deal with issues that go beyond what is named as being the health order such as life stories, family conflicts, unemployment, hunger, sexual and psychological violence. As a matter of fact, they involve difficulties for having new relationships, reception and responsibility for this request

The effectiveness of community-based interventions to improve maternal and infant health in the Northeast of Brazil

EMOND, Alan et al. The effectiveness of community-based interventions to improve maternal and infant health in the Northeast of Brazil. Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública/ Pan American Journal of Public Health , v.12, n.2, p.101-110, 2002

The effectiveness of community-based interventions to improve maternal and infant health in the Northeast of Brazil

EMOND, Alan et al. The effectiveness of community-based interventions to improve maternal and infant health in the Northeast of Brazil. Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública/ Pan American Journal of Public Health , v.12, n.2, p.101-110, 2002