Doctor receipts to go digital direct to mutuality

Getting reimbursed for medical expenses by your mutuality is about to get easier – if your physician decides to sign on to the health insurer’s new electronic system. The new system, which comes into force on 6 February, sends a digital copy of the doctor’s receipt directly to the patient’s mutuality.

Currently, doctors give patients paper receipts, and the patients must send it to the mutuality themselves. The new system not only saves the patient time, it should ensure that the reimbursement happens faster.

Doctors are not required to use the new system; physicians association Domus Medica thinks about one in 10 will sign up right away. “If it works well, others will quickly follow,” said Domus Medica director Stijn Vanholle. “We are in full support of the system. This will do away with a lot of administration.”

Federal health minister Maggie De Block first proposed the system in 2015 and has been working to get it off the ground ever since. “Reimbursements should arrive in patients’ bank accounts within two or three days,” she said. “And the mutualities will benefit from a lot less paperwork.”

Photo: Anthony Dehez/BELGA