The Consell de Govern convened this Monday to review a plan in which an external contractor would gather hospital or clinic bills from visitors needing medical care on the Balearic Islands during vacations, particularly when accidents or health incidents occur within the archipelago.
About four-fifths of unpaid charges come from residents of Turkey. European Union records would supply data from European health cards to reduce errors, while the remaining portion would likely come from travelers outside the EU who do not qualify for those records.
Among the leading sources of visitors to the Balearics are countries whose residents travel there in large numbers. The United Kingdom tops the list, followed by Germany, France, and Italy. In contrast, non-EU travelers most apt to not settle debts include the United States and Argentina.
The contract is projected to be worth 2,367,625 euros. Calculations by IB-Salut, using actual data and projections, indicate that from 2019 to 2022 the total value of unpaid invoices for care provided to both EU and non-EU tourists reached 7,398,831 euros across the four years.
a) In 2019, 2,379 invoices remained unpaid, totaling 1,787,997 euros. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the tally of uncollectible bills dropped to 887, with a total of 1,353,551 euros. Care quality improved, yet last year the number of unpaid invoices rose again to 1,749, totaling 2,257,281 euros.
Officials warned of caution, estimating that about 1,600 aid payments to foreigners could be halted, totaling around 2 million euros for the year, even as the archipelago anticipates record visitor numbers.
Officials explained that the mechanism would allow issuing invoices to tourists who lack standard data, providing at least a name, country of origin, or phone number to start the debt collection process.
The external contractor chosen to oversee the process would operate with a base bid of 1.43 million euros and could rise to 2.3 million euros if a twelve-month extension is approved. The firm would be responsible for locating the tourists, gathering their data, and sending it to the compensation fund.
The central government compensation fund aggregates all health care charges incurred by travelers from the European Union across the autonomous communities and seeks reimbursement from each member state.
Spaniards who incur health care costs abroad would face these claims once their home health systems stop paying. Likewise, non-EU tourists who fail to settle debts would be pursued individually by the contractor if there is no bilateral agreement between their country and Spain.
Officials estimate that uncollectible invoices could reach nearly three million euros in unresolved funding.