Azerbaijan, Baku, June 23 /Trend, A.Akhundov/
Azerbaijani Insurers Association (AIA) at a meeting of the Supervisory Board on Thursday reviewed and approved the recommendations on health insurance.
"Recommendation letter will be sent to the insurance companies, after which will be published in the press," AIA executive director Azer Aliyev told Trend after the meeting.
According to him, the Association has prepared recommendations both for the potential customers and insurers themselves, whose purpose is to report to the masses on the reality of health insurance.
"Recommendations have been prepared by the voluntary health insurance committee, led by the representative of the A-Qroup Company," said Aliyev.
The law "On Medical Insurance" was adopted in 1999. Azerbaijan has studied the experience of four countries including Germany, Holland, Norway and Russia to make use of this mechanism.
Medical insurance development in Azerbaijan should be accompanied by serious reforms in the health care system, Deputy Finance Minister Azer Bayramov said earlier.
Azerbaijan has studied the experience of four countries including Germany, Holland, Norway and Russia to make use of this mechanism. "The medical insurance is a very important question, but first must be changed the principle of work and funding in the health care system." Bayramov said.
Additionally, he said, introducing medical insurance can lead to a revival of the financial market, and the improvement of medical service quality. However, serious reforms should be carried out before this is done.
The medical insurance is carried out in the form of compulsory and voluntary.
Compulsory medical insurance, being part of the state social insurance, provides a population with medical and medicinal aid in an amount corresponding to the program of compulsory health insurance.
Voluntary health insurance in addition to the established program of compulsory health insurance provides medical and other public services through a contract for voluntary health insurance.
According to the data provided by the State Insurance Supervision Service of the Finance Ministry, in the first five months of 2011, the premiums on voluntary medical insurance totaled 16.03 million manat (18.54 percent of total fees) and paid compensation amounted to 7.44 million manat (33.51 percent of total payments).
Official exchange rate on June 23 is 0.7871 AZN/USD.