Related guide: Mi Farmagen: what it is and who gets it free
How Health Insurance Is Used While You Are Well: Seven Real Situations
At the Sanitas office in Majadahonda we see the two ways of having the same insurance every week: that of the person who chose it on price and keeps it in a drawer until something hurts, and that of the person who uses it to stay ahead. These are the seven situations where the difference shows most. The digital services named are the ones Sanitas includes with its health insurance through the Mi Sanitas app, within Blua; the specific check-ups, tests and sessions depend on the plan taken out, and that part we always clarify with the policy in front of us.
A year without symptoms: the check-up almost nobody asks for
Picture a 42-year-old client, healthy, who took out his insurance in January. December arrives, the renewal letter lands and his first reaction is that the insurance is expensive “because he hasn’t used it”. It is the sentence we hear most often at the office, and it is almost always said by someone who has not set foot in a consulting room in twelve months. It is not that the insurance failed: it is that nobody told him what it was for while he was well.
The other way of having that same insurance is to ask for one check-up a year with the specialist that fits your age and history: gynecology, urology, dermatology or internal medicine. Almost everything that is caught in time is treated better, faster and with fewer after-effects, and that holds as much for a blood test as for a skin check or a smear test. With private insurance, moreover, the check-up does not cost you a morning of waiting: you book the appointment from the Mi Sanitas app, choose the center and go. What we do is tell you which check-ups your plan includes, whether they carry a copay or not, and show you how to book the appointment in two minutes on the day of enrollment, so that the first check-up does not remain a good intention.
A medical question on a Sunday afternoon
Sunday, six in the evening, a child with a high fever or an adult with a pain they cannot tell is serious or not. Anyone not in the habit of using their insurance does the usual: waits until Monday, searches online and gets scared, or ends up in a packed emergency room for something that did not need it. Each of those three options has a cost, in time, in anxiety or in a lost afternoon.
With Sanitas insurance there is a fourth option that fits in your pocket. From the app you can have a video consultation in any specialty, run a guided symptom assessment or speak to the 24-hour medical emergency service, 365 days a year, by video, phone or chat, with more than 120 professionals behind it according to what Sanitas tells its policyholders. In a few minutes you know whether it can wait until tomorrow or you need to go to the hospital. That is why, at the office, on the day of enrollment we install the app with the client and walk through where everything is together: the first time you need it should not be the first time you open it.
Your mouth: the check-up and the cleaning before the pain
The dentist is the perfect example of the difference between curing and preventing. Anyone who goes only when it hurts usually ends up with a large filling, a root canal or something worse, with the cost and the time that entails. And yet most of those problems begin as a small cavity that a regular check-up would have caught in time.
Sanitas health insurance includes as standard a basic dental cover that includes, among other services, the check-up and the cleaning at Sanitas’s own dental clinics, more than two hundred across Spain and several in northwest Madrid, in Majadahonda, Las Rozas and Pozuelo. For anyone who wants more, Dental Milenium or Dental Premium can be added as a supplement. Our part is to explain exactly what the basic dental cover in your policy includes and, above all, when it pays to upgrade and when it does not: a client who is only going to have two cleanings a year does not need a dental supplement, and we tell them so.
Medication: getting it right first time with Mi Farmagen
Anyone who has taken medication regularly knows the journey: one drug that does nothing, another that causes side effects, a third that finally works, and along the way weeks or months of trial and error. Sanitas points out that one in twenty hospital admissions is due to adverse drug reactions, and a good share of that figure has to do with how each person metabolizes medicines.
Mi Farmagen is Sanitas’s pharmacogenetics program: it analyzes 29 genes, cross-references the result with more than 120 commonly used medicines and returns a report the patient takes to the consultation so the doctor can choose the drug and the dose most likely to work for them. It is activated from the Mi Sanitas app and, in the year-end promotion, new individual and self-employed enrollments get it as a gift. Anyone who prevents activates it in the first month, even if they take nothing that year, because the report is valid for life. We activate it with you on the day of enrollment and explain what to expect from it.
Your mind is part of the insurance too
Mental health is the cover most people have and fewest people use. Many clients do not think of it as part of their insurance and put up with things: stress at work, a bereavement, a spell of anxiety, until the problem grows and the consultation comes late. And it is a shame, because it is there from day one.
Anyone who uses their insurance to prevent has two tools. The first is Cuida tu mente, within Blua in the app, for day-to-day support. The second is the psychology cover in their plan, with its sessions and conditions, for when a professional is needed. The specific sessions depend on each policy, so at the office we confirm them with the terms and conditions in front of us: we would rather you count only on what you have, and use it, than discover the cover on the day you cannot cope any more.
Your body: moving without getting injured
Physiotherapy usually enters people’s lives after the injury: Saturday’s sprained ankle, the back that seizes up, the tennis shoulder. That is reactive use, the kind that arrives once it already hurts.
Preventive use starts earlier. In the app, Fisio Digital offers exercises and guidance for everyday life, and Monitoriza tu salud, in its new version according to the 2026 renewal letter, lets you track vital signs and habits. And when a real physiotherapist is needed, there is one in the Sanitas medical network. We explain how the physiotherapy sessions work in your policy, whether they carry a copay and whether they have an annual limit, because it is one of the covers where plans vary most.
And only at the end, the price
All of the above explains why at the office we ask the questions in a specific order. Anyone who looks only at the price opens a comparison site, sorts from lowest to highest and picks the first one, without looking at copays, waiting periods or the medical network. Six months later they discover that every consultation costs a copay, that the hospital they wanted is not in the network or that the specialty they need has a waiting period.
Anyone who prevents does it the other way round: first, what they are really going to use, pediatrics if there are children, gynecology, specialists without waiting, a hospital close to home; then which plan covers it best; and only then the price, with two options in front of them to compare on the same basis. That is how we work: two proposals with the reason for each one and the waiting period or the copay you will notice with the first. And if Sanitas does not fit what you need, we tell you, because a client who signs up for the wrong thing does not come back.
The digital services named (video consultation in all specialties, symptom assessment, 24-hour emergencies 365 days a year by video, phone and chat, Chequea tu salud, Cuida tu mente, Fisio Digital and Monitoriza tu salud) are the ones Sanitas communicates to its policyholders within Blua, its digital health service, with its health insurance. The specific check-ups, tests, sessions and copays depend on the plan taken out and are set out in the terms and conditions and in the particular conditions of each policy. Mi Farmagen: information published by Sanitas on sanitas.es. The situations described are composites drawn from real cases at the office, with no data from any client. Sanitas is a registered trademark of Sanitas, S.A. de Seguros.
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Common questions
Direct answers, the same we give at the office.
Is choosing the cheapest insurance a mistake?
Not necessarily; the mistake is choosing it on price alone. Cheap insurance with high copays turns out expensive for someone who is going to use it every month, and comprehensive insurance turns out expensive for someone who is never going to use it. That is why at the office we ask the questions the other way round: first what you are going to use (pediatrics, gynecology, specialists, hospitalization, dental), then which plan covers it best, and only then the price, with two options in front of you so you can compare on the same basis.
If I am healthy, why would I go to the doctor?
To stay that way. Most of what is caught in time is treated better, faster and with fewer after-effects, and that holds as much for a blood test as for a skin check or a smear test. And with private insurance the check-up does not cost you a morning of waiting: you book the appointment in the app and choose the center. If your plan carries copays, each consultation has a small amount that is stated in your particular conditions; we tell you beforehand so it does not take you by surprise.
What is the anticipatory medicine Sanitas talks about?
It is how Sanitas describes its model to its policyholders: medicine centered on prevention, innovation and continuous follow-up, combining in-person and digital care. In practice it translates into the Mi Sanitas app with Blua (video consultation, 24-hour emergencies, symptom assessment, health programs), into programs such as Mi Farmagen and into its own network of hospitals and centers. This article is about exactly that: using all of it before you need it.
Does the app replace the doctor?
No, it brings the doctor closer. Video consultations and digital consultations settle questions, follow-ups and prescriptions without travelling, and the 24-hour emergency service by video, phone or chat tells you whether what you have can wait or not. Anything that requires a physical examination, tests or surgery remains in person, in the medical network and at Sanitas’s hospitals. The advantage is that you arrive at the in-person consultation with the problem already framed.
Which check-ups should I ask for each year?
It depends on your age, your sex and your medical history, and that is for your doctor to decide, not your insurance agent. What we do is tell you which check-ups and tests your plan includes, which carry a copay and how to book them. A simple rule that works: one visit a year to your specialist of reference, one dental check-up and, if you take regular medication, the Mi Farmagen report to take to the consultation.
And the children?
They are the case where prevention shows most: pediatric check-ups, vaccinations according to the schedule, eyesight and dental. With children, the price question changes shape: what matters is having a pediatrician without waiting and a hospital close by, and there Sanitas has, in northwest Madrid, Hospital Universitario La Zarzuela and its own centers in Las Rozas and Boadilla. If you have young children, tell us when you ask for a quote: the right plan is not the same as for a couple without children.
If I do not use the insurance all year, am I paying for nothing?
If you do not use it, yes. But the solution is not to cancel it, it is to use it: the annual check-up, the dental cleaning, the video consultation for small things and the genetic report for your medication are already four uses that do not require being ill. Anyone who does that reaches the renewal knowing what they have received, and decides with facts. Anyone who does not decides on price, which is exactly what this article is trying to avoid.