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Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda), through the Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) has begun an initiative to have a unique identity number for hospitals. This, said Irda chairman TS Vijayan, will help them identify the hospitals and also collect information on the charges for different procedures.
"IIB is collecting transactional data of all insurers. We are working with hospitals of the national accreditation agencies on whether we can uniquely identify hospitals. Unique identity numbers will be integrated with the pin code of the area and name of hospitals. Substantial work is done. Once this is over, next step would be to see what are the charges for different treatments by these hospitals as far as claims are concerned," said Vijayan on the sidelines of a summit by Indian Merchants' Chamber.
The Irda chief explained that this will be useful since India had hospitals in different locations with the same.
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"We are collecting transactional data from health insurers. We will then be able to know as to how much is charged for a particular disease/procedure, by one hospital versus another hospital," he added.
Insurers have welcomed it. Kaushal K Mishra, CEO, Tata AIG General Insurance said that this will enable both insurers and customers to know what are the exact charges of a particular hospital for any procedure/surgery.
Among other issues, Irda chairman Vijayan said that product approvals for new products under the revised traditional product guidelines are mostly done and that several ompanies have begun introducing compliant products.
With respect to the new bank licenses, Vijayan said that the Reserve Bank of India had sent them the list of applicants and asked if Irda had ny concerns about them. "We have replied to them," he informed.
