Starting January 1st 2009 all employers / sponsors will have to make an annual contribution to the Government Health Care Fund. We believe that the initial contribution will be AED 800.00 per person under one’s sponsorship (over the next 5 years this is likely to go up to AED 6000). This money will be used to fund Government initiatives, the Health Management Organisations that will be central to the administration of the system and a very small amount (as yet undetermined) will be passed onto the clinics to make improvements to their services. Money will be paid to clinics as bonuses to encourage them to implement proper medical practices. As Infinity already has proper practices in place, we do not anticipate receiving any bonuses.

If one has an existing health insurance policy, the contribution to the Government Fund will be due on the anniversary of the renewal of your private insurance.

The Government Fund is supposed to go towards improving health care for everyone in Dubai – realistically we will not see any change in our practice or the delivery of high end health care – the monies paid need to be conceptualized as a health care tax.

The new system is a capitated health care system – the Government sets a cap on the cost of a health care encounter – currently AED 25 per visit, including laboratory and basic radiology! It is not possible to provide a service that vaguely approximates quality for AED 25 per encounter.

In order to counter the very low capitation fee (set as such to give blue collar workers the opportunity to access some form of health care), the Government has made provision for clinics such as ours to charge an additional fee (so-called copayment). The copayment will be paid for by the patient or their insurer. Practically this will be no different from the way we currently run the practice.

The Clinic is obliged to make its prices available to the patients when they sign up with the Clinic.

This leads to the issue of signing up with a clinic. Everyone has to sign up with one clinic that they nominate to be their primary health care provider. Once signed up, the patient cannot change their nominated clinic for one year. One is obviously free to attend any clinic that one wishes to – any fees incurred in so doing will be paid for by the patient out of pocket.

We believe that the number of patients signed on to any particular clinic will be monitored and an upper limit will be set by the Dubai Health Authority or one of the Health Management Organisations that they are in the process of appointing.

We would like to ensure that all of our existing patients have the opportunity to sign on with us. Even though there is no obligation to sign up until the anniversary of the renewal of your private health insurance policy, we urge you to sign on as soon as possible. There will be some pressure as patients try to sign on with clinics that have the best reputations – there is a finite capacity and we want to continue to service our current patient population.

For further information, go to the Dubai Health Authority website – www.dha.gov.ae