Dubai Health Authority (DHA) said it has launched an electronic portal for health insurance claims that will be applicable to all the clinics and hospitals in the emirate.

Initially this portal will capture all insurance claim arising from the Dubai government employee health insurance program known as ‘Enaya’ and eventually, every insurance claim in Dubai will be captured electronically.

Announcing the portal launch, Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, director-general of the DHA, said, 'This is a significant step for the health sector in Dubai as online capturing of insurance claims has several benefits. The online system will provide us data about every singe transaction in the health sector in the emirate.'

Al Murooshid pointed out that the system was a preparatory step towards the implementation of the mandatory health insurance scheme for Dubai.

'This has several advantages, it gives us an edge to run a successful health insurance system, it ensures minimum fraud and abuse by provides and also gives us the ability to plan clinical capacity for Dubai based on actual customer behaviour patterns and data,' he explained.

'This also translated into an impetus for investment in the health sector in Dubai because investors will have a clear data about the areas of high demand in the health sector in Dubai,' he added.

Currently claims for all the 100,000 government employees who use Enaya insurance will now be electronic. In future, once the mandatory health insurance gets implemented, e-claims will be the tool for claiming insurance in Dubai.

Khalid Al Sheikh Mubarak, the deputy director-general of DHA and chairman of the supreme IT committee said, “The implementation of this system will provide the health sector a significant boost because the system will give the DHA a real time visibility of health spending and will facilitate proper long term planning for the emirate’s healthcare needs.”

Dr Haidar Al Yousuf, the director of Health Funding Department at the DHA said, 'This project is the beginning of a comprehensive electronic healthcare system for the emirate.'

'Previously health claims were done manually, which means healthcare provides use to send the claims to the insurance companies and it would take time to get complete data of claims. Now, all claims for the Enaya insurance scheme will to be submitted electronically and this has a host of advantages.'

'The system will minimize abuse,abuse; provide instant data which will be used by the DHA for several strategic long term healthcare planning initiatives,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service