Committee Reports > List of Committees > Joint > 1980 > Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies > Report No. 09 - Voluntary Health Insurance Board

APPENDIX 6

LETTER TO CLERK TO JOINT COMMITTEE FROM SOUTHERN HEALTH BOARD

With reference to your letter of the 1st inst., one of the aspects of the Voluntary Health Insurance Board activities that has been noticed from our contact with them over the years is the system of payment, which may be open to abuse. The V.H.I.B. pays benefits directly to the subscriber on presentation of bills from hospitals, consultants, pharmacists or others concerned. It does not appear to be a system of ensuring that the accounts are actually paid and one hears of cases where the benefits are received and the accounts remain unpaid. To obviate this situation, the Board might consider introducing a system of paying benefits only on production of receipted accounts. On the other hand, this might cause hardship to some people to have the money in advance to pay the hospital or consultants and recoup the money from the V.H.I.B. later.

These are the only comments that we have to offer.

16 October 1979