WILLEMSTAD:--- Curaçao’s Social and Economic Council (Sociaal-Economische Raad, SER) today issued an advisory opinion to the Minister of Health, Environment and Nature (GMN), Mr. Gilmar Pisas, concerning a draft national decree that would amend the Landsbesluit Verstrekkingen Basisverzekering Ziektekosten 2014 and the Landsbesluit Medisch Tarief Sociale Verzekeringen 2001. The measure seeks to update the national schedule for medical laboratory diagnostics and establish maximum tariffs for each procedure that laboratories may charge the Social Insurance Bank (Sociale Verzekeringsbank, SVB).
The scheduled tariff framework has, over time, become disconnected from the operational and technological realities of laboratory diagnostics. It is increasingly outdated, incomplete, and internally inconsistent, and no longer reflects present-day diagnostic practice. Rapid advances in technology and the growing complexity of laboratory services have widened the divide between the regulated tariffs and routine clinical operations. The proposed decree aims to bring the tariff structure into alignment with medical, technological, and societal developments, while contributing to efforts to contain health-care costs.
In its review, the SER of Curaçao also examined the approach of comparable jurisdictions to health-care tariff regulation. In the Netherlands, the Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal (College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven, CBb) has made clear in several judgments that regulators must provide a transparent basis for how tariffs are set, disclose the cost-structures underpinning those decisions, and take measures to ensure that tariff regulation does not impose a disproportionate burden on providers. The tribunal’s jurisprudence underscores principles of careful preparatory work, transparent reasoning, and the protection of property rights under Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The SER’s advisory opinion addresses the legal, economic, and operational facets of the proposed tariff framework and considers the potential implications for laboratories, payers, and patients once the decree is finalized.