Rwanda Private Medical Facilities Association (RPMFA) has made a U-turn on its decision to suspend Radiant, Britam and Sanlam insurance companies over debts arrears, taken during the general assembly held on Friday, January 24 in Kigali.
The latest position was reached after a consultative meeting between the insurance companies and the private clinics association.
The meeting was mediated by Rwanda Development Board, National Bank of Rwanda and the ministries of health, finance and that of trade.
Speaking during a televised show on the national broadcaster, Dr Dominique Savio Mugenzi, the head of RPMFA said that instead of annuling the agreements, insurance companies will be asked to clear their debts as soon as possible.
He was flanked in the show by Blaise Uhagaze, the Executive Director of Rwanda Health Insurance Association and Marc Rugenera, the Managing Director of Radiant Insurance company.
“All patients can go for medical treatment as usual, because we have rescinded the decision, and the concerned insurance companies have been ordered to clear the debts in 24 hours,” he said.
For invoices that had been found to lack supporting documents, the meeting agreed that these should be cleared within three days in case these have been provided.
Despite the latest change of heart, Mugenzi defended the ultimatum earlier given to the three insurers, saying it was made after serious consideration.
The private clinics had over the weekend issued an ultimatum that patients having insurance policies with the three firms will not be considered effective January 25.
“Research conducted on 87 clinics indicated that RSSB and MMI insurance schemes paid in a period of 90 and 45 days respectively, and this is despite the fact that they serve largest number of clients,” he noted.
RSSB (Rwanda Social Security Board) has an insurance policy to which most public servants and their dependants subscribe, while MMI is mainly for those working in security services.
Some private companies also have their employees under the RSSB medical insurance, formerly known as RAMA.
“So we wondered why the biggest insurance schemes respect the terms we had, and those with fewer clients violate them,” he recounted.
However, Uhagaze believes that the issue was as a result of miscommunication other than disputes.
“We did not fail to work together, it was just an issue of communication, but from now on, we are going to foster collaboration and information sharing,” he said during the televised talk show.
Unethical practices
Meanwhile, some of the insurance firms attributed the delay in clearing the charges to suspected fraud or overcharged invoices that do not have sufficient supporting documents, including tax invoices, commonly known as EBMs (invoices generated by Electronic Billing Machines).
Regarding this particular issue, Mugenzi did not say the process is perfect, but promised that they would invest all efforts to address the issue.
Marc Rugenera, the Managing Director of Radiant Insurance also raised the same issue saying that fraud and overcharged invoices pose a bigger threat to their business operations.
“When clinics overcharge us, we are obliged to increase the premiums of our clients, that really affects us because we are not managing our own funds, we only manage contributions contributions our clients,” he said.
Had it not been averted, the decision could have impacted over 100,000 people, according to available statistics.