O programa Mais Médicos e o impacto no Sistema Único de Saúde

Abstract

Primary Care, the gateway for most users to the Unified Health System (SUS), has a strong relationship with preventive medicine, where there is a strong focus on preventing and controlling the population's illness. However, the SUS, since its creation, has demonstrated profound difficulties in offering care to the Brazilian population, impacting the services provided. Thus, over the years, programs were created with the aim of strengthening Primary Care, the Mais Médicos Program (PMM) being one of them. In this sense, this study evaluates the effect of the Mais Médicos Program, specifically the Emergency Provision axis, on ambulatory care sensitive conditions hospitalizations (ICSAP). For this, a more recent public policy evaluation method, developed by Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021), was used, aiming to have a greater robustness of the causal effect generated by the PMM. It was found that the Mais Médicos Program initially impacted an increase in the rate of ambulatory care sensitive conditions hospitalizations, with a downward trend over the years. The discussion based on this result suggests that the greater availability of medical professionals impacted on an increase in the demand for consultations and, consequently, on an increase in hospitalizations.