Does Resolution 1552 apply to IPS or only to EPS?

It applies to both, though in different ways. Articles 1 to 4 bind the EPS of both regimes, which can comply directly or through their provider network, so the appointment center of a contracted IPS is where the deadline is met or missed. Article 5 names IPS expressly: they must include the periodic analysis of this information in their quality improvement audit program. In addition, Resolution 256 of 2016 requires IPS to report their appointment timeliness.

Are the 3 business days counted from the request or from the date the patient asks for?

From the request. Paragraph 3 of article 1 says that the assignment of general medicine and general dentistry appointments cannot exceed 3 business days counted from the request, unless the patient expressly asks for them for a different timeframe. That is why the preferred date matters so much: it is the proof that a distant appointment was the patient's choice. Article 3 measures both waits, the one counted from the request and the one counted from the preferred date.

Does Resolution 1552 set a maximum timeframe for specialist appointments?

It does not set a number of days. For specialist care, it requires open schedules every business day of the year and that the user be told the assigned date when the request is received. If the appointment requires prior authorization, the EPS must respond within 5 business days of the request at most, under paragraph 1 of article 1. For pregnant women and patients with a presumptive or confirmed cancer diagnosis, the EPS manages the appointment seeking to meet, where possible, the timeframe defined by the treating professional.

What data must an appointment center keep for each request?

Five data points, under article 2: the user's identification with their contact details, the date they request the appointment, the date for which they ask it to be assigned, the date for which it is assigned and the IPS where it is assigned, with its code in the Special Registry of Health Service Providers (REPS). Those data points are used to calculate the timeliness required by article 3. Without the preferred date, there is no way to tell a delay by the IPS from a preference of the patient.

How often is appointment timeliness reported?

It depends on who reports. EPS quantify timeliness every month for the appointments assigned in the previous month (article 3) and publish specialist wait times on their website within the first 10 business days of each month (article 4). IPS report to the Ministry through the PISIS platform of SISPRO, under Resolution 256 of 2016. Since Resolution 3539 of 2019, that report is quarterly and is submitted within the 30 calendar days following the end of the quarter.

Can an IPS tell a patient there are no openings and to call back later?

No. Article 1 says that, upon receiving the request, the user is told the date for which the appointment is assigned, and refusing to receive the request or failing to set the date of the visit is not permitted. Paragraph 3 repeats the same rule for general medicine and general dentistry. If there are no slots within the deadline, the request is still recorded with its date, the breach is measured and the waitlist makes it possible to offer the patient the first slot that opens up.

How much does Omcall cost?

Omcall is billed as a license per agent per month plus AI and channel usage, such as voice minutes and messages. The price depends on how many people handle contacts, how many sites and channels you connect and which AI agents you turn on, so it is sized in the demo with your actual operation, and that yields a specific figure, not a range. IPS that join as design partners get a 30-day pilot at no cost. You can book the demo.

Resolución 1552 de 2013

Resolution 1552 of 2013

If your appointment center is accountable for timeliness, here is what the rule says, how it is measured and what must be recorded for each request.

Updated October 15, 202610 min read

Resolución 1552 de 2013 (Resolution 1552 of 2013), issued by the Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social (Ministry of Health and Social Protection), defines how appointments are assigned and how they are measured in the Colombian health system. It partially regulates articles 123 and 124 of Decreto-ley 019 de 2012 (Decree-Law 19 of 2012), the so-called anti-red-tape law, and sets three rules: open schedules, a maximum wait for general medicine and general dentistry, and a dated record that makes it possible to calculate timeliness (oportunidad: the wait between the request and the assigned date).

The main obligated party is the EPS (the health insurers that manage Colombia's mandatory health plans), but the rule is met or broken at the call center of the IPS (instituciones prestadoras de salud, Colombia's healthcare provider institutions) that assigns the appointment. If you run an appointment center or are accountable for quality indicators, here is what is required and how it is counted.

In short

What it is: a resolution of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, issued on May 14, 2013 and published in the Diario Oficial (Colombia's official gazette) No. 48.792 of May 16, 2013.
Who it applies to: EPS in the contributory and subsidized regimes, directly or through their provider network. Article 5 also names IPS.
Key deadline: general medicine and general dentistry appointments cannot be assigned more than 3 business days after the request, unless the patient expressly asks for a different timeframe (article 1, paragraph 3).
Open schedules: for specialist care, every business day of the year (article 1).
Record: each appointment stores five data points, including the request date, the preferred date and the assigned date (article 2).
Oversight: the Superintendencia Nacional de Salud (Supersalud, the national health oversight authority) monitors compliance (article 6).

What it requires, article by article

Article	What it says
1	Open specialist schedules every business day. When the request is received, the user is told the assigned date.
1, paragraph 1	If the specialist appointment requires prior authorization, the EPS responds within 5 business days of the request at most.
1, paragraph 2	For pregnant women and patients with a presumptive or confirmed cancer diagnosis, the EPS seeks to assign the appointment, where possible, within the timeframe set by the treating professional.
1, paragraph 3	General medicine and general dentistry: 3 business days at most from the request, unless the patient expressly asks otherwise.
2	Information system with five data points per appointment and remote mechanisms to request and assign appointments.
3	Monthly measurement of timeliness.
4	Monthly publication of specialist wait times on the EPS website.
5	Analysis of this information in the PAMEC (programa de auditoría para el mejoramiento de la calidad, the quality improvement audit program) of EPS and IPS.
6	Oversight and control by Supersalud.
7	Takes effect on publication; articles 2 to 5, four months later.

The resolution does not set a number of days for specialist appointments: it handles that area through open schedules, the deadline for authorization and the rule for pregnant women and cancer patients.

The five data points required by article 2 are:

The user's identification and contact details.
The date on which the user requests the appointment.
The date for which the user asks the appointment to be assigned (the preferred date).
The date for which the appointment is assigned.
The IPS where it is assigned, with its code in the Registro Especial de Prestadores de Servicios de Salud (REPS, Colombia's official registry of healthcare providers).

How timeliness is measured

Article 3 requires quantifying, every month, the appointments assigned in the previous month, by type, specialty and department or district of the requester's residence:

the total number of appointments assigned;
the sum of days between the assigned date and the request date, and between the assigned date and the preferred date;
the average wait from each of those dates, which is the sum divided by the number of appointments;
the minimum and maximum days of wait by type of specialty;
the specialist hours contracted or available by specialty.

An example: a patient calls on a Monday, expressly asks for the appointment on the following Monday and is given that day. The wait from the request is 7 days; from the preferred date, 0. The 3 business day limit is not breached because the patient asked for another date, but that can only be shown if the preferred date was recorded. Also, article 3 refers to days without saying business days, while the paragraph 3 limit is counted in business days: it is worth calculating both.

On the IPS side, measurement comes through Resolución 256 de 2016 (Resolution 256 of 2016): its indicators E.3.1 and E.3.2, average wait time for a general medicine appointment and for a general dentistry appointment, are calculated from the providers' reports. In the type 2 record, through the PISIS platform (the Ministry's file submission channel) of SISPRO (the integrated social protection information system), the IPS sends the request date, the assignment date and the preferred date of each first-time appointment of the year, by user and specialty.

Who it applies to: EPS and IPS

Articles 1 to 4 bind the EPS, directly or through their provider network. When the EPS entrusts scheduling to an IPS, the deadline is decided at that IPS's appointment center. Article 5 names IPS for the analysis in their PAMEC, and Resolution 256 of 2016 requires them to report their timeliness.

What an appointment center must do to comply

Take every request and give a date at that moment. A "there are no openings, call back next month" goes against article 1.
Store the request date at first contact, not when a slot is finally assigned.
Ask for and record the preferred date. If the patient asks for a date later than the deadline, it must be recorded as the patient's express request.
Track the 3 business days for general medicine and general dentistry, excluding weekends and Colombian public holidays.
Record the site with its REPS code.
Do not overwrite dates. The resolution does not regulate rescheduling; keeping the first assignment and the history prevents the indicator from being altered.
Offer remote channels, such as phone, WhatsApp or web, and measure every month by specialty and site to bring the results into the PAMEC.

How Omcall handles it

In Omcall, each request creates a record with the dates Resolution 1552 calls for (request, preferred date and assigned date), the first assignment and the site with its REPS code. The request date, the preferred date and the first assignment cannot be modified in the database, and every change is kept in a history that cannot be edited either.

Timeliness is calculated in calendar days and in business days using Colombian public holidays, compared against the 3 business day rule for the services you configure (by default, general medicine and dentistry) and frozen at the first assignment. A preferred date later than the limit is reported as deferred by the patient, not as a breach, and requests that pass the deadline without an appointment show up as overdue.

The record is the same whether the appointment is assigned by a person, by the API or by the Scheduler, one of the AI agents, in a WhatsApp conversation. If the appointment is created in the clinical software, Omcall takes the creation date reported by that system or flags it as estimated.

When a slot opens up, the waitlist offers it in rounds by priority. Reminders go out 72 and 24 hours ahead with options to confirm, reschedule or cancel, and a cancellation returns the slot to the list, which is the basis for reducing no-shows. If those reminders or your campaigns go out by phone or WhatsApp, also review Ley 2300 de 2023 (Law 2300 of 2023).

Reports show timeliness by specialty and site, with breaches and deferred appointments, and export the detail of each assignment to CSV or Excel. The services covered by the rule, how dates are handled and the export format are configurable; the initial configuration is a proposal your legal team must validate. In the demo we go through it with your schedule.

Decree-Law 19 of 2012, articles 123 and 124: general medicine and general dentistry appointments without an in-person request and within 3 business days at most; the timeframe for specialists is set by the Ministry.
Decree-Law 19 of 2012, article 125, as amended by article 105 of Decreto-ley 2106 de 2019 (Decree-Law 2106 of 2019): the provider requests authorization of elective services from the payer within 5 calendar days at most, and within 2 business days for specially protected populations.
Resolution 256 of 2016: quality indicators; Resolución 3539 de 2019 (Resolution 3539 of 2019) made its reporting quarterly.
Ley Estatutaria 1751 de 2015 (Statutory Law 1751 of 2015), article 6: the principle of timeliness, services must be provided without delays.
Law 2300 of 2023: hours and channels for collections and advertising campaigns.

This content is for information only and does not constitute legal advice. The rule in force is the one published by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection; always check the official text and its amendments. This page is a translation: the Spanish text published by the authority is the one that applies.

Frequently asked questions

It applies to both, though in different ways. Articles 1 to 4 bind the EPS of both regimes, which can comply directly or through their provider network, so the appointment center of a contracted IPS is where the deadline is met or missed. Article 5 names IPS expressly: they must include the periodic analysis of this information in their quality improvement audit program. In addition, Resolution 256 of 2016 requires IPS to report their appointment timeliness.
From the request. Paragraph 3 of article 1 says that the assignment of general medicine and general dentistry appointments cannot exceed 3 business days counted from the request, unless the patient expressly asks for them for a different timeframe. That is why the preferred date matters so much: it is the proof that a distant appointment was the patient's choice. Article 3 measures both waits, the one counted from the request and the one counted from the preferred date.
It does not set a number of days. For specialist care, it requires open schedules every business day of the year and that the user be told the assigned date when the request is received. If the appointment requires prior authorization, the EPS must respond within 5 business days of the request at most, under paragraph 1 of article 1. For pregnant women and patients with a presumptive or confirmed cancer diagnosis, the EPS manages the appointment seeking to meet, where possible, the timeframe defined by the treating professional.
Five data points, under article 2: the user's identification with their contact details, the date they request the appointment, the date for which they ask it to be assigned, the date for which it is assigned and the IPS where it is assigned, with its code in the Special Registry of Health Service Providers (REPS). Those data points are used to calculate the timeliness required by article 3. Without the preferred date, there is no way to tell a delay by the IPS from a preference of the patient.
It depends on who reports. EPS quantify timeliness every month for the appointments assigned in the previous month (article 3) and publish specialist wait times on their website within the first 10 business days of each month (article 4). IPS report to the Ministry through the PISIS platform of SISPRO, under Resolution 256 of 2016. Since Resolution 3539 of 2019, that report is quarterly and is submitted within the 30 calendar days following the end of the quarter.
No. Article 1 says that, upon receiving the request, the user is told the date for which the appointment is assigned, and refusing to receive the request or failing to set the date of the visit is not permitted. Paragraph 3 repeats the same rule for general medicine and general dentistry. If there are no slots within the deadline, the request is still recorded with its date, the breach is measured and the waitlist makes it possible to offer the patient the first slot that opens up.
Omcall is billed as a license per agent per month plus AI and channel usage, such as voice minutes and messages. The price depends on how many people handle contacts, how many sites and channels you connect and which AI agents you turn on, so it is sized in the demo with your actual operation, and that yields a specific figure, not a range. IPS that join as design partners get a 30-day pilot at no cost. You can book the demo.

Official source

Resolución 1552 de 2013, Ministry of Health and Social Protection (Colombia)Informational content, not legal advice. The regulation in force is the Spanish text published by the competent authority.