Mandatory health insurance set for Dubai’s small companies

DUBAI // Health insurance cover will be linked to residency visas for small companies in Dubai within weeks, Dubai Health Authority has said.

Companies with fewer than 100 employees, of which there are about 135,000 in the emirate, are in the final group of employers to have to adopt mandatory health insurance for employees, after the deadline previously passed for larger companies.

Companies should now present their employees’ health insurance certificates along with the other required documents when renewing visas, said Dr Haidar Saeed Al Yousuf, director of health funding at DHA, to The National’s Arabic-language sister paper, Aletihad.

Dr Al Yousuf added that DHA will be launching a healthy behaviour incentive programme that offers incentives to insured people who follow a healthy lifestyle that reduces their risk of diseases.

New mechanisms and systems have also been developed, in particular to prevent health insurance abuse. These will be added to the emirate’s health insurance system and will be implemented ahead of fines for violations beginning next year.

DHA intends to implement a system that links payment to quality, with a view to prevent health insurance fraud and abuse.

Currently, 85 per cent of people in Dubai have health insurance.

So far, 99 per cent of employees at the 300 large companies and the 3,000 to 4,000 middle-sized companies in the emirate benefit from health coverage.

DHA will launch an intensive awareness-raising campaign in mid-October aimed at promoting the health insurance system. It will cover local government authorities, public places and some private-sector companies.