Pru Life UK, St. Luke’s partner for faster critical illness claims process

British life insurer Pru Life UK and St. Luke’s Medical Center on Thursday entered into a partnership deal to hasten the process of policy owners’ critical illness claims.

The insurer and the hospital signed a six-month contract on streamlining claims filing and processing onsite.

“Right now, the claims process is tedious ‘di ba? Kasi hindi naman kami HMO (health maintenance organization),” Pru Life UK president and CEO Antonio de Rosas said on the sidelines of the signing ceremony in Taguig City.

“Usually, if you have an HMO, you just present your card and swipe that's it,” De Rosas noted.

“Kami, like other insurance companies, when we provide health insurance mostly for critical illnesses— stroke, cancer, kidney transplant et cetera—kailangan mag-file ng reimbursement. Ang daming documents na kailangan i-collect.

“Tapos, ikaw mismo, you have to go to the hospital to get the medical records and send it to Pru Life UK, then we will do authentication and it takes long time,” he added.

Obtaining other documents and medical records is the burden of Pru Life and St. Luke’s and no longer by the policy owner under the partnership contract

“With the partnership, the patient or the claimant will just sign a form and send it to Pru and that’s it. Bahala na ang Pru at St. Luke’s to work out the details and documents ... By the time the patient checks out andiyan na ‘yung check,” De Rosas said.

This is the partnership for Pru Life UK and a medical institution to hasten the process for critical illness claims.

“We will see our experience. If the experience is good then we can extend this. At some point in time we will look for other medical institutions,” De Rosas noted.

In 2018, Pru Life UK paid more than 300 claimants of critical illness claims.

“As a trusted leader in patient and healthcare, this new partnership with Pru is very much in line with St. Luke’s commitment of putting our patients first. We always aim to ease their burden during the most difficult times and assist them in any way we can,” St. Luke’s president and CEO Arturo dela Peña said. —VDS, GMA News