ABU DHABI // Residents need better incentives if they are to be more responsible about their approach to using health care.
Dr Michael Bitzer, chief executive of Daman, said patients often do not know – or do not care – how much their treatment costs, a factor that indirectly increases the cost of insurance.
The country’s largest insurer is now looking at ways to introduce reward schemes for insurance holders who embrace healthier lifestyles and who exhibit a responsible approach to treatment.
“We want to offer benefits if your behaviour is healthy. It gives people a focus. It exists in some markets. We want not only to reward healthy living but also reasonable behaviour,” he said.
“So if you have flu-like symptoms and you go to the pharmacy and buy aspirin and get some sleep then you might have some benefit compared with someone who says ‘I have a high fever of 36.8 degrees and what I need now is an MRI’.
“Reasonable usage means you first use telemedicine, for example, instead of going to a provider. You are a little more patient. Because if you have flu and you go to a doctor and the next day you go to the next doctor because it is not cleared up – that is nonsense because it takes seven days to get rid of flu.”
Dr Bitzer said plans in the pipeline included measures to reward policyholders who are active, healthy and shun habits such as smoking, which causes chronic conditions that have huge associated healthcare costs.
Dr Sven Rohte, Daman chief commercial officer, said human resource managers should be champions of change in encouraging healthier behaviour among their employees.
Daman, he said, was introducing HealthGuardian, an online tool designed to assist HR administrators in taking an active approach towards the health and well-being of their staff by helping organisations to create their own internal health campaigns, such as anti-tobacco and healthy eating initiatives.
“As adults, we spend more than one third of our lives at work, so it only makes sense that we need to focus on what employees and workplaces can do to become healthier,” said Dr Rohte.
“A major advantage of HealthGuardian is the fact the content can be tailored to fit the needs of a workplace and the various groups of employees who work there. Whether the business is a large diversified firm or a small office, every employer should be considering how they can improve the well-being of its workers.”
So far, 40 organisations have registered with the HealthGuardian programme, including Etihad Rail.
“At Etihad Rail, the well-being of our employees is something we prioritise. Daman’s HealthGuardian tool is very useful in this respect. It is great way to communicate health news, facts and guides on how to keep healthy and fit to our employees,” said an Etihad Rail spokesperson.
Dr Rohte said Daman has a 25-year master plan to tackle threats to community health caused by lifestyle diseases.
It includes visiting schools to tackle the “grass-roots problem” of unhealthy lifestyles among the young and increasing the number of outdoor fitness activities under the Daman ActiveLife year-round programme, in which more than 500,000 residents have participated since 2013.
It will also be pushing to increase community outreach programmes to increase awareness of the importance of nutrition and eating the right foods.
Daman has about 2.4 million policyholders and almost 1,700 employees; almost one fifth of whom are Emiratis – an increase of 11.5 per cent in the past six years, according to Dr Nawal Khalid, the insurer’s director of human resources management.
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