New EPS announces new managers for drug delivery to replace Audifarma

Since last Friday, February 21, Nueva EPS has initiated agreements with five pharmaceutical managers to mitigate the emergency generated by the withdrawal of Audifarma in the dispensing of medicines in five of the 32 departments where the entity has a presence.

The contingency plan deployed in Caldas, Nariño, Quindío, Risaralda and Valle del Cauca has allowed agreements to be made with different pharmaceutical managers who will be responsible for delivering medications to the insurer's members both at their offices and at home.

The pharmaceutical managers will be Evedisa, Discolmets, Medic, Marcazsalud and Disfarma, who, according to the EPS, will gradually open the dispensing points in the coming weeks.

“This measure responds to the communication issued by Audifarma on Friday, February 21, in which it announced that it would stop serving Nueva EPS members in the aforementioned departments as of February 23. This decision, taken without justification, contravenes previous formal agreements and commitments,” the insurer said.

In this regard, the distributors who will now be in charge of delivering medicines to Nueva EPS users will be distributed as follows:

In October of last year, Nueva EPS announced that Audifarma would no longer be the pharmaceutical manager in charge of delivering medicines to 2.5 of its nearly 11 million members, due to a lack of payments and debts on the part of the EPS. Days after the announcement, and after several meetings held through Supersalud, given that Nueva EPS is currently under intervention, the company committed to making a payment plan to guarantee the provision of the service.

Among the commitments made by Nueva EPS were the disbursement of $110 billion pesos by January 2025, as part of the payment of its debts and the delivery of the necessary information to legalize 486 billion pesos in services and medicines delivered by Audifarma to Nueva EPS users as of December 2024. However, until now Nueva EPS has not sent the documents for said legalization and just one day before the end of January it has only consigned $43 billion (of the 110 promised).

This was revealed in a letter sent on January 30 by the legal representative of Audifarma, Diego Díaz, to the special agent of Nueva EPS, Bernardo Camacho. The letter, sent with a copy to Supersalud, the Attorney General's Office, the Comptroller's Office, the Municipal Ombudsmen and the Ministry of Health, was published by the representative to the House for the Democratic Center, Andrés Forero.

The most serious thing, according to the letter, is that if the payments are not made, Audifarma may not continue to provide medicines and services to the more than 2.5 million Nueva EPS members it serves as of February 28, the date that will be met at the end of this week.

In response, Nueva EPS has emphasized that it has so far made "considerable financial efforts resulting in payments totaling $265,269 million pesos, between December 2024 and February 2025" to prevent Audifarma from ceasing to provide its services as a pharmaceutical manager.

Payments, made through Adres (Administrator of Resources of the General Health Social Security System), have been made as follows:

However, this does not cover the debts that Audifarma claims the EPS has with them.

“Nueva EPS is working tirelessly to minimize the impact of this situation on members. The Intervening Agent, together with the management team and the entity's collaborators, are fully committed to implementing the necessary measures to guarantee continuity in care, always with the objective of protecting the right to health and well-being of members. We will keep the community informed about the progress in the implementation of these solutions,” added the insurer.

Environment and Health Journalist