Day-case treatment now covered

Day-case treatment now covered

The Office of the Insurance Commission (OIC) plans to issue an announcement extending medical insurance coverage to 21 day-case treatments.

Secretary-general Pravej Ongartsittigul said the additional benefits would cover health insurance policies bought before the announcement, while policies taken out after the announcement would depend on the individual benefit plan.

Insurance companies will soon be required to absorb healthcare costs for 21 day-case treatments, and these include extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, coronary angiograms and laparoscopic surgery, he said.

Those patients treated under a day-case basis are also subject to one-day compensation if they have compensation pay coverage, said Mr Pravej.

Medical technology has evolved to the point where patients suffering from certain diseases no longer need to be treated as inpatients.

However, those who have medical coverage cannot claim for the cost of such treatments as most insurance policies stipulate compensation for only in-patient medical costs.      

The total premiums for the first four months this year rose by 15.1% from the same period last year to 238 billion baht.

That represents 6.1% of the GDP at a time when political tensions gripped the country.

Of total premiums, 169 billion baht were from the life insurance business, while 68.5 billion came from non-life policies.

Life insurance premiums for the January-April period surged 21.9% from the same period last year, while non-life insurance premiums edged up 1.31%.

The launch of new life insurance products and the expansion of sales channels into convenience stores helped to boost premium growth, said Mr Pravej.

Automobile insurance dominated non-life insurance premium.

Auto insurance amounted to 39.6 billion baht, more than half of non-life premiums for the first four months.

The OIC is maintaining its premium growth target at 13% this year, an 85-billion-baht increase over last year's premiums totalling 660 billion.

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