Dubai: The Essential Basic Package holders of health insurance in Dubai are likely to have cancer included in their coverage with effect from 2018, say sources in the Dubai Health Authority (DHA).

However, insurance companies have sent a mixed response to the DHA Health Funding Department’s decision as this will increase the cost of reinsurance for them and also hike the premium of the basic package (EBP). The formal announcement of cancer coverage is slated to come soon.

Cancer is the third biggest cause of death in the UAE after road trauma injuries and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). The incidence of breast, lung, colon and prostate cancers remains high.

Gulf News has learnt that a few week’s ago, the DHA’s Health Funding Department called a meeting of all insurance providers to recalibrate their coverage to include cancer in the Essential Basic Package. A senior person at the department told Gulf News: “We discussed the idea of including cancer treatment and giving full coverage for the disease in the EBP with our insurance providers with effect from 2018. This will be done even if the expenditure on cancer treatment exceeds the annual aggregate limit of Dh150,000 provided in the EBP.”

However, insurance providers are confused as they say that what had been discussed with them so far was only cancer screening. A source from Takaful Emarat, one of the biggest providers of Essential Basic Package, confirmed: “We have been told that beginning 2018, preventive cancer screening tests will be covered in the EBP. This is likely to increase the premium costs to Dh875 per annum, similar to the one in Abu Dhabi. Otherwise, we will not be able to cover the expensive cancer screening tests.”

Dr Sanjay Paithankar, managing director of Global Net, a third party administrator (TPA), explained: “All insurance providers usually have to get themselves reinsured so that if the premiums don’t cover our cost, the reinsurance takes over the additional burden. Reinsurance is a simple case of insurance providers seeking an insurance policy for themselves.

“In any case, as more and more people are getting aware of the benefits of health insurance, the demand for insurance and our costs are going up. Earlier, if only a third of those insured knew how to use their cards, nearly 80 per cent now are utilising their health insurance and so our costs have already gone up and so have the premiums to reinsurance companies. Now with cancer screening included, we will have to get a higher reinsurance coverage to reduce the risk we operate at. In the end, this additional expense will have to be borne by the average man.”

If cancer treatment is to be covered, the premiums will soar, fear health service providers as the average cost of any cancer treatment for a year is easily between Dh100,000 and Dh300,000. In any case, if an individual is diagnosed with cancer within the first or second month of his insurance coverage, he will be covered for the pre-existing condition only six months after being diagnosed. After that, within a year when his insurance expires, he will have to renegotiate a higher package considering his condition.

A cancer patient is expected to take a package which could have an annual premium of anywhere in the range of Dh10,000 to Dh40,000, considering the stage and severity of his condition.

Most companies who have employees diagnosed with cancer are likely to fire them as the cost of treatment and premium will be too high to bear and in return a cancer–stricken employee’s productivity is likely to come down to near zero. So despite the government’s generous decision to include cancer in the list of insurance coverage, the average expatriate blue-collar worker fears he will only find himself be burdened with higher premiums and face the threat of being fired and sent back home.

© Al Nisr Publishing LLC 2017. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).


© Gulf News 2017