By Dec-end, India set to showcase a workable insurance claims exchange

Discharging a patient from a hospital has always been about tedious paperwork and long hours spent staring at the clock.

There is reason to believe that much of this could change. In the next two months or by the end of this calendar year, the country may well be able to demonstrate a workable health insurance claims exchange.

Called the National Health Claims Exchange or HCX in official parlance, it is a digital deliverance of sorts, that could sharply cut down both the time spent and the cost incurred in insurance claims processing.

Put in place by the National Health Authority (NHA), the HCX is a digital public health infrastructure to link up the entire health insurance eco-system to enabling a seamless processing of health insurance claims.

Earlier, in August, 29 insurance companies and 18 TPAs (47 entities in all) that make about 99 per cent of India’s insurance sector by volume took to integrating into the national health exchange.

They had to log into the NHA system and start testing their integration and demonstrate that their systems were able to create ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) the unique health IDs that are assigned to every citizen apart from unique IDs for doctors, nurses the complete treating team as it were, with health professional ID along with unique IDs for all hospitals and laboratories.

As a result, when there is a claim, there is a unique ID for all patient and the treating team and of the hospital or the laboratory where the test happened. This will play a crucial role in checking fraudulent claims