Deadlock continues over cashless treatment issue

“The issue of cashless treatment facilities will besolved soon. Both the sides are working on resolving their differences,” IRDA Chairman J Hari Narayan said while attending a Health Insurance Summit organised by the CII here. “The problem over restoration of the cashless treatment facilities is with certain group of hospitals. I hope this will soon be resolved through talks,” he said.

Narayan said over 400 hospitals were now providing cashless treatment as compared to nearly 300 prior to the dispute.

The four insurance companies—New India Assurance, United India Insurance, National Insurance and Oriental Insurance — had taken off from July 1 nearly  150 hospitals in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai from the list that offer cashless hospitalisation services to policy holders under the mediclaim scheme.

The PSU insurance had stopped the cashless service because of alleged over-billing by some private hospitals, which impacted their insurance business.

However, top executives of some of the high-end private hospitals attending the summit indicated that deadlock over the restoration of cashless treatment facilities still continued. “The differences continue. Efforts are still on to arrive at a consensus,” Analjit Singh, Chairman of Max India Limited said.