One in 100 members of Free health insurance companies have not been to the doctor in five years, according to a report in Monday’s Het Nieuwsblad. “As part of a study on over-consumption, we noticed a considerable part of our two million members have not asked for reimbursements for the reference year 2010”, says Doctor Ingrid Umbach. She works at the health insurance study services. This was the case for 133,798 people, around 7% of the members.
By enlarging the study to the two years before and after 2010, it turns out that 22,185 members had never requested a single euro back for a visit to the doctor.
This trend worries Free health insurance companies. “As these people are never ill, this means they also don’t do anything to prevent illness: no yearly check-ups at the dentist, no vaccinations, no check-ups at the gynecologist. And that is bad for their health in the long term”.
(Source: Belga)
