By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After the medical insurance programme for government employees and pensioners, MEDISEP, hit a stumbling block, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has demanded to avoid middlemen in the form of insurance companies. According to its state committee, the government should implement MEDISEP. They say that the middlemen will lead to exploitation and deny beneficiaries quality health care. “These insurance companies usually take 15 to 20 per cent as commission from the claim. Instead, the government can extend its existing mechanism and implement MEDISEP,” said Dr M E Sugathan, president, IMA. The state committee also pointed out that as 90 per cent of the healthcare institutions had rejected the project, the government should come out with better solutions. It should sanction insurance claim on time, not withhold claims, restructure the rates of various procedures without causing operational loss to the hospital and others. Earlier, the Finance Department had recommended the Chief Minister’s Office to re-tender for the provider of the medical insurance programme for government employees and pensioners. It follows the failure of Reliance General Insurance, which quoted the lowest annual premium in the previous tender, to empanel a sufficient number of hospitals under the MEDISEP network. According to the Finance Department, the company had failed to bring a sufficient number of hospitals in all the three categories prescribed for the Empanelled Provider Network, where category-I is for general-purpose hospitals, category-II for speciality/ super speciality hospitals and category-III for hospitals for transplant surgery. Meanwhile, the Finance minister’s office has said that the existing reimbursement scheme for employees would continue until the MEDISEP was implemented.

Stay updated with all the Latest Thiruvananthapuram headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.