Wednesday 24 / April / 2024
Muscat: Oman’s mandatory universal health insurance for private sector employees, domestic workers and visitors to the Sultanate, may begin rolling out as early as mid-2020.
The system aims to provide affordable health insurance to private sector employees and domestic workers, as well as visitors to Oman, and will start with the electronic Dhamani (Arabic for ‘my insurance’) system for mandatory health insurance. It hopes to guarantee that costs do not leave too much of a dent in the wallet of those who find healthcare expensive.
Ahmed Al Mamari, the Vice President of the Insurance Sector at the Capital Market Authority, told Times of Oman: “We hope to begin the rollout in the middle of next year or before, since we hope to also focus on technology, which is important in both the insurance sector and health sectors. This is where Dhamani comes into the mandatory health insurance system. It is an electronic platform that links the providers of health insurance, the health services and customers as well as the government, which allows us to regulate the system better and even add new services.”
Providing proper healthcare to people is key in the mandatory health insurance programme, which is why the CMA also worked on a unified minimum type of health insurance that has to exist.
“The health insurance will not be identical between different companies,” added Ahmed Al Mamari.
“We have put in a mandate, a unified minimum health insurance that insurance companies have to provide, and this is to protect all consumers. This is the minimum, basic health insurance. However, companies will be able to compete, using different health insurance schemes that improve on the mandate and using different prices.”
According to him, the project will also help expand both the private insurance sector and the private health sector in Oman. “The project provides health insurance coverage to Omani and expat employees in the private sector, as well as domestic workers and visitors,” added Al Mamari
Ahmed Al Mamari said, “The goal is to provide health coverage to this large segment of society, as well as to draw investments and demand to the private health sector in Oman, which would improve services.
“The authority was directed by the Council of Ministers to coordinate with the ministries of health and manpower, as well as the Royal Oman Police and the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry to work on creating the necessary framework,” he said. “At this point, we are in an advanced stage when it comes to creating the framework. We also worked to canvass the opinion of private sector representatives on how best to implement the project from an economic standpoint. We decided to instigate the project phase by phase, so that we do not move on until we have seen how ready we are,” he added.
SMEs will be exempt
According to him, SMEs will be exempt from the mandatory health insurance requirement at the start of the scheme.
“We kept SMEs in mind when thinking about the project,” explained Al Mamari. “During this phase, SMEs will not have to implement health insurance, and we are coordinating with Riyada in order to find the best way to introduce it for SMEs in a way that preserves them.”
According to the latest insurance data from the CMA, there were 469,791 people covered by health insurance in 2018, 262,486 of whom were Omani and 207,305 of whom were expats. The health insurance programme aims to raise that number to over two million workers.
Higher efficiency
Dr Mohamed Ghazaly, health insurance advisor to the Capital Market Authority, told Times of Oman: “The system is fully electronic, which will lead to higher efficiency compared to paper insurance, and is expected to begin rolling out in 2020. This rollout is expected to take around two or three years from when it first begins until it covers everybody.
“By the time this system is fully established, it is expected to include two million employees, which is much higher than the 400,000 or half a million people who are currently covered, as well as around two or three million others, who come into Oman as tourists or short-term visitors. When they come to Oman, they will need to get an insurance package,”
he added.
An insurance company operating in Oman has said it was looking forward to the programme. Paul Abu Faisal, the chief of life and medical insurance at Arabian Falcon Insurance, told Times of Oman: “Growing the market from half a million to two million beneficiaries will naturally open the path for investors, who will see a boost in their business, and we are looking forward to it.
Preparing our files
“We have begun preparing our files for this programme, and we hope that we are one of the companies who sign on to be part of the programme as soon as it is rolled out,” he added.
These comments came at the Oman Health Expo, which was opened yesterday at the Oman Convention & Exhibition Centre by His Excellency Sayyid Dr. Sultan bin Yarub Al Busaidi, Advisor to the Ministry of Health for Health Affairs. The medical event, which is now in its ninth edition, will run from September 23 to 25.
