Doctors, insurance and emergencies in Buenos Aires

Empadronamiento comes first

The first requirement for using the city's health system is empadronamiento, a one-time registration done in person at an empadronamiento point, presenting a document that proves identity. That is the whole registration process. The accepted documents include a DNI, a foreign passport, a constancia de residencia precaria, foreign cédulas, a Federal Police cédula, a libreta cívica or de enrolamiento, and an original birth certificate.

The system is tiered, and you enter at the bottom

First-level care is the CeSAC, a Centro de Salud y Acción Comunitaria, where you are given a médico de cabecera working with an interdisciplinary team. CCI are smaller extensions of a CeSAC, and CEMAR carry out higher-complexity tests but only on referral from a CeSAC. The second level is the hospitales de cabecera, 14 general adult hospitals and 2 children's hospitals; the third is specialised hospitals and chronic care. You are meant to enter at the CeSAC rather than walking into a hospital.

Getting an appointment

Once you are registered with a CABA address you can book through the turnera web, through Boti on WhatsApp, in person, or by telephone on 147. The operator asks for the identity number you registered with, assigns you to the health centre nearest your address, and emails the appointment. Check your spam folder, because that email is the appointment.

• 147 takes health bookings Monday to Friday 07:00 to 21:00 and Saturday 08:00 to 14:00; from outside the city the number is 0800-999-2727.
• The ambulance and medical emergency number is 107, run by SAME. Police is 911 and general civil emergencies 103.

Prepagas: the price is deregulated, the tables are not secret

Private cover is bought from an empresa de medicina prepaga. Since DNU 70/2023 and Resolución 1926/2024 the Superintendencia de Servicios de Salud has no competence over the price of plans or of co-payments, so insurers set them. Prices are still filed and published: under Resolución 645/2025 prepagas must lodge their tariff tables with the Superintendencia within five days of each INDEC consumer-price-index release, searchable by period, insurer, region, plan and age band at cuadrostarifarios.sssalud.gob.ar. Check any quote you are given against that database before you sign anything.

• Filed for September 2026: OSDE plan 2 210 Individual in the CABA and Buenos Aires Province region runs from ARS 165,007 to ARS 461,856 a month by age band, and plan 2 310 Individual starts at ARS 216,367.
• Hospital Italiano's MAGNA plan for Buenos Aires runs from ARS 235,728 at 16 to 35 up to ARS 707,183 at 60 and over; Galeno's Azul 150 starts at ARS 137,416.
• The price is deregulated but the admission rules are not. Ley 26.682 still forbids waiting periods for anything in the Programa Médico Obligatorio, still says a pre-existing condition may only come from your own sworn declaration and cannot be grounds for refusing you, still requires the Superintendencia to authorise any differential premium for one, and still bars age as a ground for refusal — and the oldest age band may not cost more than three times the youngest.

Check the insurer is registered before you pay it

Under Ley 26.682 it is the Superintendencia that authorises a prepaga to operate and keeps the register, so an entity that is not on it is one the Superintendencia cannot pursue on your behalf. Check the name against the Registro Nacional de Entidades de Medicina Prepaga and the public lists of agentes del seguro and prepagas before you pay anything. If you later take a formal job, your contributions route you into an obra social, and a right of libre elección lets you move between obras sociales and prepagas through an opción de cambio handled by the Superintendencia — made with a clave fiscal, irrevocable, and repeatable only after a year.

• Superintendencia de Servicios de Salud: Bartolomé Mitre 434, on 0800-222-72583, 08:00 to 16:00, in person by appointment.
• It also takes complaints about a refusal to affiliate you and about an improper increase by age band, which are the two things most likely to go wrong when you sign up from abroad.