Bienestar Home-Care Program Reaches 10.9 Million People

Mexico's Ministry of Welfare reported 22.8 million home-care consultations reaching 10.9 million older adults and people with disabilities through Health House by House between July 2025 and June 2026, with 2.25 million already registered for the 2027 Universal Health Service credential. 

Mexico's home-based health program, Salud Casa por Casa (Health House by House), delivered 22.8 million consultations and reached 10.90 million older adults and people with permanent disabilities between July 2025 and June 2026, according to the Ministry of Welfare's Second Report of Activities 2025-2026. The figures position the home-visit program as the data backbone feeding a national registry that will support the 2027 rollout of Mexico's Universal Health Service (SUS) credential.

More than 21,267 health workers conducted the visits, taking blood pressure and glucose readings, updating vaccination records, and referring patients to specialized units when needed. Leticia Ramírez, Head, Ministry of Welfare, says the emergency referrals logged through the program represent "the possibility of even saving lives," reporting close to 900,000 people directed to specialized institutions as of late August, an update that already places the cumulative consultation count near 24.8 million, ahead of the Second Report's June 30 cutoff.

The program sits inside Mexico's broader push to consolidate a fragmented public health system. IMSS, ISSSTE, and IMSS-Bienestar delivered 101.2 million first-level consultations between January and July 2026, a 28% increase over 2022, a volume increase that federal officials have tied directly to the SUS rollout created by presidential decree in April 2026 The SUS aims to let patients access care at any public institution regardless of which one covers them, addressing fragmentation and unequal funding affecting an estimated 44.5 million people. Salud Casa por Casa serves as one of the mechanisms building the population registry that underpins that integration: 2,246,000 older adults and people with disabilities were already registered for the future SUS credential as of the June cutoff.

Not every part of the SUS rollout has moved at the same pace, however. Jesús Hernández, President, Mexican HealthTech Association, warns that Mexico's health institutions built their electronic medical record systems on different standards with no shared interoperability framework, a gap that could turn the credential into another layer of bureaucracy rather than a seamless gateway between institutions. Mexico's public health spending for 2026 sits at roughly 2.6% of GDP, less than half the 6% the World Health Organization recommends for universal coverage, a constraint that shapes how quickly programs like Salud Casa por Casa can scale alongside the credentialing effort.

The home-visit program builds on two existing pension schemes. The Pension for the Welfare of Older Adults covered 13.89 million people as of June 30, while the pension for people with permanent disabilities covered 1.87 million people. For the disability population, the health component extends beyond the monthly cash transfer: 21,291 Rehabilitation Credentials for Welfare were issued between January and June, and 25,480 children with disabilities received specialized therapy through coordination with Fundación Teletón, an intervention the report values at MX$973.6 million (US$57.3 million) and 6.255 million cumulative therapy sessions.

Budget execution for Salud Casa por Casa reached MX$1.73 billion (US$101.8 million) of a MX$4 billion (US$235.3 million) allocation for 2026, or 43.3% of the annual amount, as of June 30. Combined with the separate Woman’s Pension  Bienestar program, Health House by House accounts for 9.1% of the Ministry of Welfare's social investment for 2026 while representing 46% of the benefits the ministry reports, a ratio the report frames as a description of spending against coverage volume rather than a measure of health cost-effectiveness.

Physical infrastructure trails the home-visit expansion. Of 75,949 projects planned under the Fund for Social Infrastructure Contributions (FAIS), worth MX$104.8 billion (US$6.2 billion), only 262 projects, budgeted at MX$543.1 million (US$31.9 million), correspond to basic health infrastructure such as hospitals, dispensaries, and medical offices, equivalent to 0.52% of planned FAIS resources. That contrast echoes the anchor project of the government's hospital-building push: the Ciudad Salud Ñuu Tata complex in Oaxaca, a MX$10 billion (US$588.2 million) facility integrating IMSS, ISSSTE, and IMSS-Bienestar under the SUS framework, illustrating how large-scale construction and door-to-door outreach are advancing on different timelines within the same reform.