Saudi Arabia: Health insurers must offer minimum network of health service providers
Source: Middle East Insurance Review | Jun 2017
The Council of Cooperative Health Insurance (CCHI) has confirmed that it will be enforcing its requirement for health insurers in Saudi Arabia to offer a minimum network of accredited health service providers.
The network has to cover all regions, provinces and cities in the kingdom and its geographical scope should include providers at all health service levels, reported Al Riyadh.
CCHI has looked at international practices and established a schedule of what constitutes a minimum network. It has circulated the schedule to insurers.
The objective is to ensure that the insured has access to all healthcare services, said CCHI Secretary-General, Mr Mohammed Bin Salman Al Hussein, in a statement.
Since mid-2016, when the unified healthcare insurance policy was introduced, health insurers have to provide a minimum network of health service providers.
Mr Al Hussein pointed out that with effect from 11 August 2017, health insurers will not be allowed to issue policies to employers if they do not comply with the requirement.
He said: “We came to this decision after a thorough study of the number of insured by geographical distribution.” He added that CCHI noticed that some insurers have a limited network of health service providers.
The statement also pointed out that the number of people with health insurance is about 12 million people, of whom 2.5 million are Saudis and 9.53 million are non-Saudis. There are 27 insurers offering medical insurance in the kingdom. M