Ahmedabad: The Ahmedabad Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (AHNA) on Tuesday announced that all member hospitals and nursing homes in the city will indefinitely suspend cashless facilities for three health insurance companies.
The move comes after prolonged and unresolved grievances reported by both patients and hospitals regarding unfair practices by these insurers. AHNA officials engaged in multiple rounds of discussions with these companies, highlighting issues such as unjustified claim deductions, unwarranted claim rejections and unexplained delisting of hospitals and nursing homes from their network without due process, mentioned a press release by AHNA.
Dr Bharat Gadhvi, president of AHNA, said that according to the Annual Report 2023-24 of the Council of Insurance Ombudsman, Ahmedabad had the third highest number of complaints related to health insurance after Mumbai and Pune.
“Around 3,300 complaints were received by the Insurance Ombudsman of Ahmedabad office in 2023-24, almost recording nine complaints a day. These are just those complaints lodged with the Insurance Ombudsman. Most patients avoid lodging complaints due to various reasons and the actual numbers may be very high,” he added.
AHNA officials named Star Health and Allied Insurance, Care Health Insurance and Tata AIG Health Insurance as the three companies They added that AHNA is actively exploring tie-ups with financial institutions to offer cashless payment alternatives for affected patients.
In statements issued, Tata AIG Health Insurance said that they are actively engaged with relevant stakeholders to resolve the matter at the earliest. Star Health Insurance’s statement mentioned a lack of regulatory oversight in the hospital industry for certain challenges.