IRDA to enforce cashless plan
New Delhi, Aug. 11: The insurance regulator will soon take steps to resume the cashless health insurance facility to policyholders by PSU insurers.
“Now that the High Court has given the direction, we will follow that,” the insurance regulator IRDA chairman, Mr J. Harinarayana, said on Wednesday on the sidelines of an event organised by Ficci.
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) to intervene and ensure that such changes do not affect the existing policyholders.
Till now, the IRDA had remained on the sidelines of the tussle between the PSU insurance companies and hospital chains, claiming that it will come into the picture only if there was a breach of contract.
The court had pulled up the IRDA for its aloofness maintaining that it cannot leave patients suffering “saying that a meeting will be convened. Patients are not getting treatment because of the dispute between insurance companies and hospitals. It is your duty to act timely.”
The court was hearing a petition filed by a person, whose 53-year mother, a cancer patient, was refused cashless treatment.
From July 1, state-owned health insurance companies, which have around 70 per cent market share, have stopped cashless facilities at big hospitals blaming them for misusing this facility and overcharging their customers. The insurance firms alleged that for the same treatment, the hospitals were charging more if the customer was paying through cashless facility.
For a common man stopping of the cashless facility was a problem as without it he had to pay for the treatment from his pocket and later claim reimbursement.
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