Affordability and value-based pricing are driving innovative payment schemes in the regional healthcare insurance sector, as governments in Mena introduce mandatory insurance policies targeting better healthcare systems and improved funding from the private sector.

Earlier this year, Dubai Health Insurance Corporation explained that there is fierce competition in the healthcare insurance sector. By January 2019, over 50 insurance companies, 23 third-party administrators (TPAs), and 103 brokers or intermediaries were already operating in the UAE alone. Meanwhile, after the introduction of employer unified health insurance policy for the private sector in Saudi Arabia, the health insurance captured 52.9 per cent of the total market size.

The regulators say this, coupled with increasing lifestyle diseases among the growing population, and high purchasing power has resulted in insurers introducing quality plans that are affordable and provide value-based payments reimbursement schemes such as managed care plans and outcome-based models.

The fifth Mena Health Insurance Congress happening from October 1-3 at the Millennium Airport Hotel in Dubai, is the premier gathering for key healthcare insurance stakeholders from the region and the globe to highlight the efforts made to develop the health insurance market in the Mena region and further to explore how the regulators, payers and providers can collaborate more closely through technology use, what are the critical dynamics and the drivers of the business tools and to improve cost containment strategies in the healthcare financing system as well as discuss innovative business models in targeted geographies in Mena.

The Mena region is now faced with an unparalleled and unprecedented rise in demand for healthcare over the course of the next two decades. It is estimated that the total healthcare spending in the region will reach $60 billion in 2025, up from $12 billion today.

According to Dr Doaa Said, managing director of Maarefah Management, the organiser of the event, the congress will discuss the one essential component of implementing Value-Based Healthcare (VBH), that is to understand the environment, which is currently following a fee-for-service model. VBH changes the mindset because it provides a cultural shift and in a market where there is competition, the onus is on the value a provider brings to the healthcare ecosystem.

At the interactive key leader’s panel discussion, the healthcare leaders will be addressing complex and thought-provoking issues of the “Future of Health Insurance".

“In the coming years, the health insurance sector will become an influencing factor. Data analytics will be very important for monitoring utilisation and financial stability, jointly approaching chronic lifestyle-related diseases, caring for the aged population and coverage for innovative drugs and therapies, which will be discussed by brilliantly credentialed speakers representing from major payer, provider and regulatory organisations,” she added.

Now in its fifth year, Mena Health Insurance Congress is the largest congregation of global and regional insurance professionals in the Middle East and North Africa. It has cemented Dubai’s position as the ideal hub for industry leaders to discuss and embrace the necessary business models and regulatory frameworks that drives growth in the industry. - TradeArabia News Service

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