By: Fahd Omran
Cairo – Mubasher: MedCom Healthcare, a company dedicated to managing medical insurance for insurance companies in Egypt, is looking to raise its paid-up capital by EGP 12.5 million to EGP 20 million within months.
This move comes in line with Egypt’s new health insurance law, the company’s CFO Hisham Joseph told Mubasher in an interview.
The Egypt-based firm has recently launched an application for smartphones, in addition to an online platform, Joseph said.
MedCom does not plan to become a medical insurance firm, the CFO highlighted, adding that the company will only manage medical insurance programmes for insurance companies.
He indicated that only EGP 10 million is adequate as a minimum paid-up capital for companies managing medical insurance programmes.
Moreover, he expected that the new health insurance law will be an obstacle for some companies that withdrew from the market or those seeking mergers.
MedCom is currently dealing with three insurance companies; namely, Royal Insurance, Delta Insurance, and Iskan Insurance, Joseph said, pointing out that the company is in talks with another two companies to manage their medical insurance programmes.
The CFO also revealed that the company aims to provide their services for around 110,000 people by the end of 2019, noting that nearly 85,000 people have benefited from medical programmes managed by MedCom in 2018.
For his part, MedCom’s medical network manager said that the company has about 2,400 providers of medical services across Egypt, including hospitals, medical centres, doctors, and pharmacies.
The company seeks further expansion with new service providers based on the clients’ needs to achieve mutual benefit, the medical network manager remarked.
He further noted that foreign investments into the Egyptian healthcare sector have remarkably raised the prices of services by up to 200% in the past two years.
He added that medicines make up around 55% to 60% of total cost of healthcare and that the local market is expected to see a new uptick in prices over the coming period, pressured by pharmaceutical firms.
Translated by: Mai Ezz El-Din
