Risk management is the process of identifying, analysing, accepting, mitigating or transferring uncertainty in investment decisions. Fund managers apply risk management by analysing and attempting to quantify the potential loss of an investment and then acting accordingly.

Panama’s Social Insurance Fund (Caja de Seguro Social – CSS) has launched a course on “Social security for all” and has made it available to the entire population of Panama.

The “Social security for all” (Seguridad social para todos) course is aimed at the institution’s employees and is in fact part of the induction process for new employees. However, everyone should understand social security because social security is a human right. Consequently, the institution’s challenge is to provide everyone with this knowledge.

Institutions are being transformed thanks to the integration of new technologies. This vision represents a corporate change with a social impact, reducing costs, simplifying processes and procedures, and raising awareness of the importance and benefits of this transformation.

Panama’s Social Insurance Fund (Caja de Seguro Social de Panamá – CSS) has put in place operational models that use and develop new communication technologies through mobile devices to offer high-quality care to members. This is part of its vision to be a leading guarantor of social security in Panama and to ensure efficient, agile and timely management, for the benefit of Panamanian people.

Article 12 of Law No. 5508 on the Promotion, Protection of Maternity and Support for Breastfeeding establishes that maternity allowance should be paid to employed women by the social security scheme of Paraguay’s Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS). This amount is equivalent to 100 per cent of her salary at the time of delivery, and is paid for the prescribed months of rest. This used to be given to women in a single payment.

The issue of population growth and social security planning is one of the biggest challenges facing governments today, and is a key part of a good social security system that instils confidence in its members.

The Retirement and Pension Fund for Employees of Banks and Related Institutions (Caja de Jubilaciones y Pensiones de Empleados de Bancos y Afines) (Bank Fund, hereinafter) is in constant communication with its members. It therefore continuously updates its databases, in order to have a better understanding of members’ current realities, experiences and needs.

Digital transformation is happening in institutions through the integration of new technologies. This vision represents an institutional and social change, optimizing available resources, reducing costs, shortening processes and procedures, and raising awareness of the importance and benefits of this transformation.

Good practice in health – service quality.

As health-care systems have evolved to become more complex and due to the resultant increase in patients coming to harm in health care settings, patient safety has emerged as a health-care discipline.

Panama’s Social Insurance Fund (Caja de Seguro Social – CSS) has put in place operational models that use and develop new technologies to offer high-quality care to members. This is part of its vision to be a leading guarantor of social security in Panama and to ensure efficient, agile and timely management, for the benefit of Panamanian people.

The Actuarial Advisory Office (Asesoría Actuarial) of the Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS) carried out an actuarial valuation of the Common Retirement and Pension Fund (Fondo Común de Jubilaciones y Pensiones). The valuation looks to comply with international best practices and observe the guidelines and standards of the International Standards of Actuarial Practice 2 (ISAP 2), and the ISSA-ILO Guidelines on Actuarial Work for Social Security, with technical support from the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Like most of the world’s countries, Paraguay has adopted lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. These steps taken by the government have impacted the productive sector, leading to mass suspensions of employment contracts for persons insured with the Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS) of Paraguay.

Social security will remain subject to continuous change owing to the economic, political, social and demographic circumstances which not only impact its environment and development but also constitute management challenges.

By taking up this challenge, the current administration of the Social Insurance Fund (Caja de Seguro Social – CSS) of Panama, through its strategic planning and objectives, has created an opportunity to optimize the ongoing quality, efficiency and sustainability of health services.

Paraguay’s Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión de Social – IPS) used to make sick leave payments at its administrative offices, which had associated administrative costs and meant beneficiaries had to visit the IPS service counter in person.

Panama’s Social Insurance Fund (Caja de Seguro Social de Panamá – CSS) has put in place operational models that use and develop new technologies to offer high-quality care to members. This is part of its vision to be a leading guarantor of social security in Panama and to ensure efficient, agile and timely management, for the benefit of Panamanian people.

The Social Insurance Fund (Caja de Seguro Social – CSS) of Panama, with a set of actions contained in the Strategic Plan, is managing to integrate technological platforms with the modernization of IT systems. This also allows access to the new services offered via the website through the use of this new technology to broaden solutions to insured persons.

The most widely used processes for the technological tools are the following:

India has a federal structure of governance, where health is a provincial subject and social security and labour are in the concurrent list. Healthcare and cash compensation for employment injury in the formal sector are provided by the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) while the pension and provident fund are provided by the Employees Provident Fund. The employees of factories and establishments in the formal sector are entitled to social security benefits through the ESIC scheme.

The extension of the ESI scheme was not progressing at the desired pace. In 2010 the threshold coverage level was reduced from 20 to 10 employees through an amendment to the Act. Moreover, in sparsely populated areas many establishments could not be covered even with the threshold of 10 employees.

State Governments are instrumental in delivering healthcare services under the ESI Act. An enabling provision was inserted in the Act to establish a body at the State level to address certain operational issues.

A committee, entitled Medical Services and Medical Education (MSME), was constituted to explore various options to improve operational efficiency.

The Employees  Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), under the Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India provides social security benefits to its members in terms of provident fund and old age pensions under the Employees' Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (referred to as the Act hereafter), enacted by the Parliament of India, which extends to the whole of India except the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The inefficiency and complexity of various processes involving a multitude of forms and returns and the resulting difficulty in delivery of online services to over 60 million contributory subscribers and over 200 million accounts, was a big challenge for the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) of India since some time back. The sheer size of stakeholders heightened the need of digitization.

To ensure adequacy and improve the quality of social security benefits the following actions have been taken:
 

The ESIC has taken the following measures to proactively improve the scheme:
 

• The minimum amount of monthly dependants' benefit payable to dependants of a deceased insured person has been prescribed as 1,200 Indian Rupees (INR) a month.
• Long-term benefits (permanent disablement benefit and dependant's benefit) have been linked to the cost of living index.

The purpose of LOGHOS is to render the inventory administrative procedures for supplies and medication more efficient in order to provide a better service. It seeks to guarantee a maximum percentage of supplies available for the treatment of patients at the national level and thus to improve the quality of care and the satisfaction of our insured members.

This system, which was coordinated with the National Disability Secretariat (SENADIS), consists of a web form which can be accessed via our web site www.css.gob.pa, which in turn has a direct link with our medical appointments service; the latter was specially set up to respond to this type of request, its objective being to implement good practices which will enable timely treatment for this important group within the Panamanian population.

The Programme for Paediatric Cardio-vascular Surgery, which includes a Programme for Interventional Catheterization Program and the Treatment of Arrhythmias was established as a response to this problem.

Implementation of this initiative was based on collaboration between Cooperative teams from the United States and the Consortium known as the World Pediatric Project, which has its headquarters in Richmond Virginia.

Associated Universities and Hospitals:

The Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) undertook a number of actions which led to the following measures being introduced to extend coverage:

ICT has been used to improve compliance, and to implement on-line registration of employers and employees, and make benefit payments.
Forms and the procedure for benefit rate calculations have been simplified.

The new systems and procedures resulted in savings of about 25 per cent of Branch Office staff which could be utilized in other information and communication technology (ICT) related work during its transition phase.

The number of kidney transplants increased from 2011 onwards with 108 cases in 20 months, approximately 20 per cent of the total number of transplants carried out in the history of Panama.

The first liver transplants were carried out by the Institution in 2011, thus improving the quality of life for those insured and their dependents.

It provides an opportunity for recognition of employees who apply standards of excellence, of contributions beyond the call of duty and of innovations in working procedures.