Pilot platform to speed up insurance claims in Singapore calls for proposals

SINGAPORE'S push to speed up insurance claims took another step forward, with the pilot platform now calling for proposals. 

On Monday, the General Insurance Association Singapore (GIA Singapore), Life Insurance Association, Singapore (LIA Singapore) and Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS) jointly called for proposals starting today to develop an end-to-end health insurance claims platform. The call for proposals closes on April 26. Applicants must express their interests and submit their clarifications by March 29, they said in a press statement.

The platform, expected to go "live" as a pilot this year, is targeted at the uncertainty over the claimable insurance amount when an individual is hospitalised, Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) had said late last year at the Singapore FinTech Festival x Singapore Week of Innovation & TeCHnology. 

The aim is to help to reduce duplicate claims, manual errors, and processing time, he had said then.

The integrated health insurance platform will provide access to patients' insurance policy details. Healthcare providers will be able to retrieve details of patient’s relevant policy coverage information for Integrated Shield Plans and Group Hospital and Surgical Insurance, to ascertain if admission deposit can be waived.

This is also meant to speed up claims processing. On this platform, healthcare providers can submit claims digitally to the insurers on behalf of patients, and insurers can obtain necessary billing and medical data digitally from the healthcare providers.

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To ensure seamless authorisation of data release, the platform will allow patients to consent to the release of relevant data, including medical records and insurance policy details, to insurers or healthcare providers, digitally through their Singpass app. 

In addition, healthcare providers can via the platform provide timely bill information and updates of the patients’ status. This includes the length of hospitalisation stays, which allows insurers to quickly provide updates to patients on the estimated claimable amount.

The initiative is supported by the Ministry of Health and the MAS. Participating organisations for the pilot include KK Women's and Children's Hospital, National University Hospital, Singapore General Hospital, and Great Eastern Life Assurance Company.

The integrated platform will be deployed as a live pilot with policyholders from Great Eastern, which will be the first to gain access. The end objective is to scale the platform for nationwide adoption, GIA Singapore, LIA Singapore and IHiS said.