Communication Challenges Between Insurance Companies and Hospitals: an Exploratory Study in Tehran

Following the deployment of the Health Transformation Plan (HTP) in most of the public hospitals, various changes occurred in the relationships between insurance organizations and hospitals. The purpose of this study was to find the obstacles and challenges facing the two types of organizations and suggest solutions.
This was an exploratory study. The research population was a total of 74 participants from Tehran public, private and military hospitals (managers, senior nursing officers, financial officers, and chiefs of accounting) and basic and complementary insuring organizations (insurance agents in hospitals, insurance officers from insuring organizations, and insurance managers). Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis.
The most important challenges were as follows: acting on one’s own preferences, deductions, delays in the payments of hospital expenditures, an insufficient number of insurance agents in some hospitals, insufficient accountability of hospital personnel in expenditure management, lack of sufficient interaction between the two organizations, and lack of contracts between complementary insurance companies and public hospitals and between private hospitals and basic insurance organizations.
Given the importance and sensitivity of the relations between the health service providers and receivers and considering further the complexity and challenges that appeared after HTP and hospital accreditations, a knowledge of the challenges identified in this research can help policy-makers and managers to find suitable, effective strategies for enhancing relations and communication between insurance companies and hospitals.