Oman is Planning a Mandatory Health Insurance from January

The Council of Ministers of Oman has decided to execute a national insurance policy in 2017

Oman is ready to make it obligatory for organizations and businesses to provide health insurance to their staff beginning from January.

Waleed Al Zadjali, the head of Oman Medical Association said while confirming this news:

Oman’s Capital Market officials said that they were dealing with the relevant institutions regarding the strategy and the future plans were still in the “drafting stage” after the Council of Ministers took a decision last year.

Nasr Al Salhi, who is the authority’s director of valuation and risks surveillance department said that the work was still “in progress” and the first step was to link the insurance companies with various hospitals and develop an electronic system which could take care of medicines and treatments, thus outing a check on manipulating practices like price increases etc.

The execution will be done in phases like in the neighbouring United Arab Emirates.

Oman’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry had earlier said that a fair health insurance cover should ideally be given to all the private sector employees by 2018.

But there are some companies which have got affected by difficult market conditions and the strict government measures and do not give importance to providing insurance to employees.

Dubai’s health insurance law has made it compulsory for the employers and sponsors in various brackets to provide coverage in a phased manner starting from 2014 to March 31, 2017.

The execution of that structure enhanced the profits made by the UAE’s health insurers in the year of 2016 in spite of difficult market environment linked to the lower oil price.

Saudi’s Council of Cooperative Health Insurance has also started with the concluding phase of a unified health insurance structure in April 2017.