The request of a guarantee check by private clinics is an illegal practice, Minister of Health Khalid Ait Taleb said on Tuesday in Rabat.
In response to an oral question on “the request for guarantee checks in private clinics” presented by the UMT group at the House of Advisors, Ait Taleb stressed that legally it is prohibited for clinic, in the event of third-party payment, to ask the insured persons or their relatives for a guarantee in cash, by check or any other means of payment apart from the sum they should pay, pursuant to article 75 of the law 131.13 relating to the practice of medicine.
He explained that in accordance with article 316 of the Commercial Code, “any person, with full knowledge of the facts, who accepts to receive or endorse a check on the condition that it is not cashed immediately and that it is kept as a guarantee, is punished by imprisonment from one to five years and a fine of 2,000 to 10,000 MAD”.
The demand for guarantee checks by private clinics is the result of the absence of an electronic system allowing access to the data available to insurance companies to know whether the patient is subscribed with a company or not, said the Minister, noting that this is a gap that is being exploited.
According to him, the ministry interacts quickly with this kind of questions, complaints and grievances through an inspection system and in the event of infringement, the violators are sanctioned via the Order of Physicians.
After stressing that what had happened in recent days at certain clinics should not be generalized to all establishments, Ait Taleb assured that the services of the ministry have not received until now complaints related to the demand for guarantee checks by private clinics.
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