Mumbai: Backing Star Health Insurance in the ongoing standoff with hospitals, The General Insurance Council, has termed the cashless service suspension threat by the Association of Healthcare Providers – India (AHPI) as unilateral and unwarranted.
The country’s non-life insurance apex body claimed that, last week it had scheduled a meeting with AHPI to constructively resolve concerns. However, “AHPI rescheduled the meeting to a future date and later proceeded with its unilateral action and signalled a preference for disruption.”
“We urge AHPI to immediately withdraw its warning and engage constructively with insurers, ensuring uninterrupted cashless services for all policyholders,” it added.
In its release, GIC has further assured that, “Star Health policyholders will continue to have uninterrupted access to healthcare, ensuring their coverage remains fully protected” .
AHPI, which represents over 15000 hospitals has served a 10-day ultimatum to Star Health Insurance, alleging arbitrary rejections of hospital bills and operations based on outdated tariff rates.
Responding to the allegations, the company in an official statement earlier said that, “We have not received any case of cashless suspension from our network partners with whom we have bilateral agreements and AHPI has chosen to issue threats of suspending cashless services in a manner that is arbitrary.”
The current standoff between hospitals and insurers follows a similar episode involving Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, when AHPI called on member hospitals to halt cashless services for its policyholders.
The issue was later resolved after the insurer assured it would address various concerns through formal actions.
