Focus on: in-house lawyers in the healthcare industry

Since 2015, I have served as General Counsel of Empresas Banmédica, a healthcare industry leader company in Chile, Peru and Colombia. Since 2018, Empresas Banmédica has been a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group. In this position, I am responsible for defining, implementing, and monitoring the legal aspects for the company in the three markets. My team has 46 members, who report to me, working in different subsidiaries distributed in the three markets.

Without any doubt, the last few years have been the most challenging in my career. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic had strong impact in the healthcare systems in Latin America, significantly affecting our company’s operations in our providers and insurers, with prominent levels of occupation in the group hospitals, massive new regulation and demanding collaboration requirements from the public sector. In such context, my team and I had to overcome the difficulties and actively engage with the business leaders in defining strategies to face the contingency. Although the pandemic’s effect in the healthcare sector has been significant and continuous until today, we have managed to mitigate the financial and operational impact, both at the insurance and the delivery segments of the business.

But not only Covid-19 has brought stress to the legal function; the recent variable political and regulatory scenario in South America has brought additional difficulties. Most importantly, in 2019, Chile started a process to change the Constitution, which considers redefining the healthcare system and the participation of private actors within it. In any case, it is expected that new laws will be enacted that will make necessary to change our business, which will certainly require our team’s participation. In this context, as legal counsel we are being required to anticipate scenarios and to support the design of strategies for the company to ensure the business’s continuity and sustainability.

Despite the difficulties, I am proud to say that during the last few years my legal department has been up to the task, and we have proven to be a qualified group of experts and legal partners. The business has recognised the excellent work. In a way, the legal function in a company such as ours has been redefined and it has acquired relevance. Now, we are not only seen as legal advisors, but also as the beacon guiding our organisation through difficult and ambiguous times to a new era for the healthcare industry.