A nurse at Lebanon's Rafik Hariri public hospital in Beirut. (Credit: AFP file)
BEIRUT — Insurance companies in crisis-hit Lebanon are expected to raise their premiums as well as the benefits received by doctors, while hospitals are also pushing for a similar measure, the president of the Association of Insurance Companies in Lebanon (ACAL) told L'Orient-Le Jour on Tuesday evening.
An agreement between ACAL and the Lebanese Medical Association to increase the premiums by 10 percent for new insurance policies and raise the fees paid to doctors by 50 percent was to supposed to be reached on Tuesday and announced on Wednesday.
However, the Order of Physicians did not sign the memorandum on which the two organizations had agreed due to disagreements within the Order, ACAL's president Assaad Mirza told L'Orient-Le Jour. New discussions are expected to take place to resolve this issue, he added.
Mirza specified that the increase in doctors' fees will not affect, in principle, the fees directly charged to patients.
However, he added that fees not covered by insurance might be impacted. These fees are already calculated in dollars and take into account the depreciation of the Lebanese lira and inflation.
Private hospitals are demanding a 40 percent increase in the prices of services covered by insurance, according to the president of the private hospitals union, Haroun Sleiman. Mirza said discussions on this matter have yet to be concluded.
Doctors and hospitals say the increase in their fees is due to the government lifting subsidies on most medical care services and medical supplies at the beginning of the year.
Nearly all other subsidies put in place since the onset of the economic crisis in 2019 have been lifted, including those on diesel used to power private generators to make up for shortages from public supplier Electricité du Liban.