Opportunities and Challenges: Health Insurance in Saudi Arabia

This discussion post examines the development of health insurance in Saudi Arabia, highlighting significant growth opportunities stemming from privatization and increased healthcare service accessibility. It explores challenges such as prolonged waiting times, rising expenses, and the need for digital transformation, while emphasizing the positive impact of health insurance on the country's National Transformation Plan and Vision 2030. The post discusses the role of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in enhancing private sector expenditure in healthcare and suggests strategies for effective care, including improved primary care centers, better resource utilization, and the implementation of innovative approaches to improve care coordination and management of chronic disorders. The author provides citations from several academic sources to support the arguments presented.

Running head: HEALTH INSURANCE DEVELOPMENT
HEALTH INSURANCE DEVELOPMENT
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1HEALTH INSURANCE DEVELOPMENT
In Saudi Arabia, the demand of healthcare initiative is increasing day by day thus
triggering the demographic shift to grow continuously with an increased demand of coverage
in health insurance. Inspecting the Saudi Arabian healthcare arcade, the number of
opportunities for both the existing investors or operator and the new entrants are increasing to
unlock the crucial growth prospective by fulfilling the present and future breaches. The
primary opportunity of health insurance in Saudi Arabia is development of privatization of all
public hospitals. Various researchers and policy-makers are involved in this development
highlighting a perspective to reorganise the healthcare system of Saudi Arabia (Aljaffary,
2018). The other opportunity of implementing health insurance in Saudi Arabia is in
enhancing or increasing the accessibility and availability of different health care services. In
order to meet up with the challenges of heath care system in Saudi Arabia, a national strategy
named MOH was set up in healthcare services and was approved by the in April 2009 by the
Council of Ministers that will primarily focus on expanding funding sources (who.int, 2019).
The major challenges that can rise in the future of Saudi Arabia includes prolong
waiting time, prompt increase in expenses, adaption of digital transformation, restructuring,
shortage of skilled healthcare resources, hurdle in public health management and loss of
balance in insurance sectors (Abaker et al., 2019). These operational challenges might limit
the quickness and delay the necessary changes that is required to manage the existing
healthcare problems.
The development of health insurance in Saudi Arabia has a positive impact on the
country with the primary focus on the area of National Transformation Plan (NTP) and vision
2030. The chief objective of Saudi Vision 2030 was recommended to expand the budget
excluding hydrocarbons and activate a better contribution of the remote or private division by
boosting both international and local investments in different key sectors (Alsayyari et al.,
2018). One of the different key sectors is healthcare. Saudi vision 2030 includes the concept

2HEALTH INSURANCE DEVELOPMENT
of privatisation of various government services that will assists to meet with objective of the
plan and aim to upsurge the contribution of private sector’s thus increasing the GDP from
40% to 65% by the year 2030. The National Transformation Plan was established to assists
and fulfil the objectives set by Saudi vision 2030. Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme
was established under NTP that will enhance and increase the share of private sector
expenditure in healthcare by service providers and substitute financing methods (Cchi.gov.sa,
2019).
The ideas for effective care in promoting the national healthcare program includes use
of improved primary care centres, adopting improved daily life habits, utilisation of present
resources by enhancing the collaboration among various organisation and facilities,
implementation of innovative strategies and best practice approaches for improving the care
coordination in the country and effectively managing the numerous chronic disorders and
lastly invite qualified clinicians for establishing a professional environment with skilled
health practice to expand the quality and superiority of care (Alomi et al., 2018).

3HEALTH INSURANCE DEVELOPMENT
References
Abaker, M. O. S. M., Al-Titi, O. A. K., & Al-Nasr, N. S. (2019). Organizational policies and
diversity management in Saudi Arabia. Employee Relations: The International
Journal, 41(3), 454-474.
Aljaffary, A. (2018). Exploring public attitudes towards the health system of the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia (KSA) (Doctoral dissertation, City, University of London).
Alomi, Y. A., Alaskari, D. A., Almelfi, M. M., Badawi, D. A., & Alshihri, A. M. (2018).
Healthcare Professional’s Knowledge about Cost Related Medication Information in
Saudi Arabia. Age, 18(5), 2-66.
Alsayyari, A., Alblawi, A., Nawab, M., & Alosaimi, A. (2018). A Conceptual Framework for
Facility Management in Higher Education Institutions in Saudi Arabia. In IEEE
International Conference on Technology Management, Operations and Decisions
(IEEE ICTMOD 2018).
Cchi.gov.sa. (2019). Council of Cooperative Health Insurance. Retrieved from
https://www.cchi.gov.sa/en/Pages/default.aspx
who.int. (2019). WHO EMRO | Health care system in Saudi Arabia: an overview | Volume
17, issue 10 | EMHJ volume 17, 2011. Retrieved from
http://www.emro.who.int/emhj-volume-17/volume-17-issue-10/article-11.html