DOHA: The second phase of the compulsory health insurance scheme is expected to be launched by April next year when all Qatari citizens are to be brought within its ambit.
The first phase of the scheme was implemented some months ago covering a large segment of Qatari women.
Public health authorities have reiterated that the National Health Insurance Company (NHIC) set up to implement and monitor the scheme will be the sole provider of insurance cover for basic medical services.
The beneficiaries of the scheme, once it is fully enforced, will be the entire population, including citizens, expatriates and visitors. Healthcare regulator, the Supreme Council of Health (SCH), has asked insurance providers to cancel agreements they might have signed with healthcare providers to make basic health insurance cover available to people.
The grace period allowed to the insurance companies to cancel the above agreements is April next year, SCH has said.
Once the deadline ends and insurance providers are found not complying with the directives of SCH, the law will take its course.
Insurance companies licensed to operate in the country can only provide additional insurance cover — for medical services that are not basic. “So they should sign agreements with healthcare providers to provide insurance cover only for additional medical services,” SCH has said.
Insurance cover for basic medical services is out of their purview, SCH said, adding it was a sole prerogative of NHIC.
There are 26 basic healthcare services for which insurance cover will be provided by NHIC.
A list of these services is likely to be made public sometime next year. According to the law that regulates the mandatory health insurance scheme, the Minister of Public Health is to determine the premiums to be paid in respect for each category of beneficiaries. Employers will be required to pay the premiums for their foreign workers and their dependents, while the state will pay for the insurance of citizens.
The peninsula
