DAMMAM — The Council of Cooperative Health Insurance (CCHI) has warned the insurance companies against delaying approvals on hospitals' requests for medical treatment and medicines for the insured patients and said they would be fined for any lapse in this regard. The council, according to the Dammam-based Alsharq newspaper, said the approval would be considered as automatically given if the insurance companies did not reply to the request within 60 minutes. "The maximum time for each insurance company to reply for the requests of hospitals for approvals is one hour after which the approval will be considered as already given," the council said. The council said any insurance company which slackens or delays giving approval to the hospital request will be fined SR5,000 for each insured person and his dependents. The council asked the patients to post their complaints on its website www.cchi.gov.sa or call on its free toll number 920001177 giving the insurance company's name and its geographical location.
