Word: simnsa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...cross-border preferred-provider organizations (PPO) that allow their workers to be treated by selected providers in Mexico for a minimal cost. Dental insurers also have long sent patients south. But cross-border medical HMO plans for the general population wereunheard ofuntil the mid-1990s, when Sistemas Medicos Nacionales (SIMNSA), a Tijuana-based HMO, began selling policies to employers in the San Diego area. At the time, there were no rules governing Mexican hmos selling insurance in California. "It was not legal, but it was not illegal," says SIMNSA president and ceo Frank Carrillo. "It was just sort...
...them down and lose the benefit of low-cost health coverage in a state where an estimated 4.5 million are uninsured--more than half of them Latino. In 1998 California passed legislation that allowed Mexican HMOs to operate in the state, provided they offer benefits solely to Mexican nationals. SIMNSA was granted a license in 2000. So far, it is the only Mexican HMO approved to sell cross-border policies in California...
...average salary last year of general practitioners in California was $149,000, compared with the $35,000 to $50,000 earned by Mexican doctors. "It depends on the specialty, but for the most part the doctor's profession is not lucrative at all," says SIMNSA's Frank Carrillo. One reason doctors in Mexico are more easily accessible, he says, is that they work longer hours to earn better...
That's one reason Maria Elena Click, 44, is willing to drive 40 miles from her job in Encinitas, in north San Diego County, to visit her Tijuana physician. She switched last year from Blue Cross of California to SIMNSA when her Blue Cross premium went up. She says her new cross-border plan is not only cheaper ($26 a month for herself and her teenage daughter, as opposed to the $170 she says she paid with Blue Cross), it's also friendlier. In the U.S., "they leave you waiting in the examining room a long time," Click said...
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