The Ministry of Health (MOH) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the General Secretariat of the Council of Cooperative Health Insurance (CCHI). The operational capacity in public medical sector, by virtue of this MOU, will be increased for health service providers, by means of joining of 200 MOH hospitals under the umbrella of CCHI, a process which is scheduled over three phases during 2016. This MOU aims at promoting the coverage of health insurance and increasing its number and widespread across the Kingdom, particularly in the regions or provinces where there is a lack of sufficient health services provided by private health sector.
The MOU was signed by His Excellency the Vice Minister of Health, Mr. Hamad bin Muhammad Al-Duweila' and the CCHI Secretary-General, Mr. Muhammad bin Suleiman Al-Hussein.
The MOU comes within the framework of enhancing the ongoing cooperation between all authorities relevant to health insurance, in such a manner that achieves roles complementarity and contributes to accelerating the sector's development from various quarters. The MOU stipulated that some MOH facilities are to be registered within the medical service providers' network accredited by the CCHI after meeting the accreditation requirements; because MOH is reckoned the largest health service provider, as well as its facilities cover all the Kingdom's regions and providences. In this regard, the CCHI will provide the technical aspects support, in terms of training the technical and administrative manpower on the system applications, regulations and unified document of CCHI, as well as providing MOH with technical advice to prepare its health facilities, required to be accredited within the health insurance service providers' network. Besides, the General Secretariat will provide the electronic connectivity to insured verification service in these facilities.
It is worth mentioning that CCHI benefits more than 10,968,210 insured persons; among them 3,112,210 Saudis (at a rate of 30%) and 7,855,457 non-Saudis (at a rate of 70%), and provides them with health insurance services through 26 insurance companies, 7 claims management companies and 2,547 medical service providers.