INTERVIEW with Pedro Batista – Director of Prevent Senior.

Check out the exciting story of Prevent Senior and the vision of Pedro Batista, its director, in the face of the challenges faced by health plan operators after the COVID-19 pandemic:

Blog Saudi: Tell us a summary of the history of Prevent Senior.

Pedro Batista: Prevent Senior was born 24 years ago. It is the result of an idea by brothers Eduardo and Fernando Parrillo. Eduardo, who is a doctor, noticed that there was a gap in patient care, especially older patients who were no longer covered by health plans when they stayed in the ICU for more than 15 days. He set up a clinic specializing in caring for these patients and his brother Fernando joined the business, driving the only ambulance that supported patients in care. The business took shape until they bought their first hospital, Sancta Maggiore Humaitá, in Bela Vista. That was in 1998. In this process, they realized that both the public and private health systems had a preponderant characteristic: the lack of prevention. Eduardo studied health systems in other countries and, from there, Prevent Senior as we know it was born: prevention processes to prevent people from falling ill or worsening their health, improving quality of life and allowing the company to be economically sustainable, charging prices righteous.

Saudi Blog: In your view, what are the main challenges facing healthcare providers right now, one year and five months after the emergence of the pandemic?

Pedro Batista: The Brazilian private supplementary health system is based on two ends. On the one hand, the plans or insurers and on the other, the service providers, which are doctors, clinics and hospitals, who depend on sick people to bill and receive from the health plans. During the pandemic, this equation was unbalanced, because there was a natural decline in elective and routine procedures. Now a wave of demand for health could lead systems to an overboost like never before, and, without predictability of actions, health operators could suffer a lot with the bills that will arrive.

Saudi Blog: How is your operator dealing with these challenges?

Pedro Batista: Prevent Senior's work model and format has prioritized in recent years a standard of verticalization of processes with a more precise view of everything that happens in the system. Furthermore, we look at the factor commonly called “expenses” by the market as 'investments”. The doctors who work at the company have a unique culture of dedication and high performance. Hospitals and diagnostic centers (even accredited ones) operate within a system integration standard. Therefore, we managed to get through a crisis that was very heavy, without compromising Prevent's financial health and, more importantly, without neglecting our more than 550 thousand beneficiaries. Right at the beginning of the pandemic, we were the first affected, but we had the agility to adopt procedures on how to welcome our beneficiaries efficiently. We created the first and largest telemedicine system in the country, the first drive-thrus to collect swab tests and we carried out the first large mass testing program in the country, with more than 100 thousand asymptomatic beneficiaries tested.

Saudi Blog: Is there actually or is there any expectation of a bottleneck in the use of the plan at this time?

Pedro Batista: There was a bottleneck in the first phase, in 2020, and in the second wave, in May, due to social isolation programs. When isolation begins to be relaxed, you have a natural burst of pent-up demand. 

Saudi Blog: Even during the pandemic, was there any growth in the operator?

Pedro Batista: Even during the pandemic, Prevent maintained its average growth over the last five years, of around 18%. And it is organic growth, which has been maintained with the dissemination of the service model we created.

Saudi Blog: Do you think about any expansion for 2021?

Pedro Batista: With the success of the first major expansion site in 2019 in Rio de Janeiro, we improved our capacity to replicate the model in 2020 and in 2021 the process continues. We have just launched the operation in Brasília and will open in Curitiba and Porto Alegre this year. We are also starting a major action with doctors and hospitals in the interior of São Paulo, such as São José do Rio Preto, Ribeirão Preto and Campinas to open operations in these cities. 

In 2021, we also launched an innovative initiative, Prevent Senior Sports, which combines cutting-edge sports medicine with technology to serve high-performance athletes and our amateur sports beneficiaries. It is an unprecedented project, perhaps the largest in the world, which guarantees assistance to athletes from the Brazilian Olympic Committee, Stock Car, Olympic gymnastics and athletics. Teams from Vôlei Barueri, Vôlei Osasco, São Paulo, which is the women's volleyball team of three-time Olympic champion José Roberto Guimarães, also joined the program, and we are going to close a partnership with Formula 1 and the WSL, which is the world league of surfing, not to mention electronic sports athletes and also Paralympians.

Saudi Blog: Would you like to pass on a message to healthcare operator managers?

Pedro Batista: The main objective of current healthcare systems is to achieve predictability of events in the lives of their patients. Obtaining predictive models is only possible with systems integration. Therefore, the search for greater security and transfer of information about each beneficiary needs to become unanimous in new investments in the coming years.