Cashless Health Insurance Claim Settlement: Insurance regulator IRDAI has appointed Shekhar Sampat Kumar as the Director of Health Insurance and Insurance Ombudsman of the General Insurance Council (GIC). He will work on implementing completely cashless medical insurance settlement in hospitals across the country.
Soon medical policy holders will get the benefit of 100% cashless facility, under which hospitals will provide treatment without any kind of payment. At present, when the policy holder is admitted for treatment, the hospital puts pressure on him to deposit some amount and he also has to deposit the amount.
To implement cashless settlement system in all hospitals, insurance regulator IRDAI has constituted General Insurance Council (GIC) and Shekhar Sampat Kumar has been made its health insurance director. He has been entrusted with the responsibility of implementing this system.
Insurance regulator IRDAI has ordered the Common Panel Process of Hospitals and 100% Cashless Committee to submit a report on implementing completely cashless medical insurance settlement in hospitals across the country. Presently cashless settlement facility is available in 49% hospitals. The number of such hospitals is around 25,000.
According to the insurance regulator, approximately 400 million medical insurance policyholders are expected to benefit after the scheme is implemented. In view of the recent clashes between insurance companies and hospitals, IRDAI is exploring ways to resolve such incidents.
According to an order issued on August 1 by General Insurance Council (GIC) Secretary General Inderjit Singh, the committee will provide weekly updates with the aim of introducing cashless settlements nationwide by the end of October. Let us tell you that the chairman of the committee is S Prakash, former managing director of Star Health and Allied Insurance Company.
The insurance regulator has appointed Shekhar Sampat Kumar as Director of Health Insurance and Insurance Ombudsman of GIC for three years. He can take charge in Chennai by the end of this month.
Shekhar Sampat Kumar played a key role in standardizing rates for medical procedures for PSU general insurers a decade ago. Now he will work towards bringing all the hospitals under cashless facility and implementing general processing rates for them.
