KATHMANDU: The Health Insurance Board (HIB) has urged the health institutions to provide regular medical treatment to the health policy owners.

HIB Executive Director Dr Damodar Basaula, through a press release on Thursday, urged the health institutions to provide regular medical care to the health insurance policy owners as the process is underway for payment of medical treatment charges.

“The Board is vigorously working for the prompt payment of claims that have been examined. The payment would be made regular by preparing a work schedule in the coming days. Therefore, the Board requests all the service-providing health institutions to deliver the medical treatment service to the health insurance policy owners in a regular basis,” the press release stated.

It may be recalled that the TU Teaching Hospital, the B&C Medical College and the Nobel Medical College had announced that they were to stop the medical treatment services to the health insurance policy owners citing the Board’s failure to make payment of amount in lieu of the insurance policy.

According to the HIB, the insurance claims of 1 million 853 thousand 953 health policy owners till May 29 of the current fiscal year are being examined with priority. It said payment of Rs 8.13 billion has been made by verifying the claims of a total 5 million 284 thousand 894 policy owners, including the one million 909 thousand 57 remaining from fiscal year 2021/22 and the 3 million 375 thousand 837 of the current fiscal year.

Around 5 million 639 people of 746 local levels in 77 districts have so far subscribed to the health insurance policy.

The Board has been operating the health insurance program by reaching agreement with 450 health service-providing institutions throughout the country.