To estimate the changes in the health care service demand during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 of a subsidized health care company in the Caribbean region of Colombia.

A descriptive and analytic study was conducted. We analyzed administrative datasets of health care service providers of a subsidized health care company in the Caribbean region of Colombia. This company had 2,119,410 affiliates between March of 2018 and June of 2020. We estimated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the health care service demand. An interrupted time series method (ITS) was used and a p-value <0.050 was considered significant.

We observed changes in the weekly outpatients and hospital services demand compared before the COVID-19 pandemic (baseline) and during the pandemic period (until June of 2020). We found that, in general, the weekly health care services demand has been changed in -36,7% [CI95% -45.3; -26.7] compared with a typical non-pandemic year. In turn, specific protection and early detection services decreased in -56% [CI95% -71.5; 32,0], surgery services in 50.9% [CI95% -56.8; 44,3] and intermediate hospitalization service changed in -55.8 [CI95% -64.8; 44,4]. Finally, the service that reduced its weekly demand was intensive care unit hospitalization in -22.3% [CI95% -37.4; 3.6].

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic the health care services demand was contracted, and it could be explained by the reallocation of health resources to attend the pandemic. In this context, the opportunity cost resulting from the reallocation of resources and the interruptions of treating chronic diseases patients could be reflected, in the future, with an increase of risk of additional health outcomes in these populations with risk factors.