Monday, April 16 2012 17:04
Compulsory medical insurance of government employees necessitates compulsory insurance of doctors' professional liability
ArmInfo. The compulsory medical insurance of government employees in the framework of the Armenian Government's "Social Package" program necessitates the compulsory insurance of doctors' professional liability, Executive Director of Nairi Insurance Gor Khachatryan said in an interview to ArmInfo.
He said that the latter should be financed by hospitals. "All of our hospitals – even the poorest – can afford insuring the professional liability of their doctors. It's not a secret that in Armenia doctors charge informal payments to compensate for their low wages. The World Bank's report says that those payments make up 2/3 of the local health care market's turnover," Khachatryan said.
He said that the key problems of the health care sector in Armenia were the lack of modern equipment and common quality and pricing standards. "The key source of these problems is poor management rather than the lack of money," Khachatryan said.
He said that for years the local health care market had been developing on its own, with no common approaches and requirements. "That's why it will be hard for it to adopt a new common product. Everything will depend on how effectively people will be informed of it and on how effectively the insurance companies will monitor its application by hospitals," Khachatryan said.
He said that his company had drafted four individual medical insurance programs and one family insurance project for government employees. "This product is socially oriented. We are trying to make it as clear and as easy to access as possible – for any slightest deviations may discredit the image of medical insurance in the eyes of our consumers," Khachatryan said.
According to ArmInfo's Ranking of Insurance Companies of Armenia, in 2011 Nairi Insurance collected 2.7bln AMD in premiums (3rd place, thrice as much as in 2010) and paid 851.5mln AMD in compensation. The company's assets totaled 3.9bln AMD, capital 1.8bln AMD.