The Ministry of Health will start accepting insurance cards from patients at its hospitals.
The plan will be implemented in phases based on a defined timeline. Patients will be able to use their health insurance cards at Al Baraha hospital in Dubai next month. The plan will next apply to Al Qassimi hospital in Sharjah and cover all 14 ministry hospitals from Dubai to Fujairah.
The Ministry signed an agreement with a company that will be in charge of collecting amounts owed by insurance companies.
Awad Al Kotbi, assistant undersecretary at the ministry’s support services department, told Al Ittihad, the Arabic-language sister newspaper of The National: “We have come to an agreement with the company on many procedural aspects of using health insurance cards in the hospitals, with the coordination and cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, and an agreement on the mechanisms and collection process.”
He said staff will be trained to use a specialised electronic system and that all requirements related to the implementation and the space allocated to the company will be settled, noting that the ministry preferred phasing-in the use of health insurance in its health facilities in order to provide the service seamlessly directly after its application at Al Baraha.
newsdesk@theantional.ae
