NHSO now authorised to reimburse all for basic health services
The National Health Security Office (NHSO) has been authorised to reimburse non-gold cardholders for vaccinations and disease-prevention expenses, the NHSO chief said.
Dr Jadet Thammathat-aree, NHSO secretary-general, said on Sunday that caretaker Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has signed a third order for the NHSO expense management fund for this year. This would allow the NHSO to reimburse members of the Social Security Fund and state officials under the Prevention and Promotion (P&P) basic public health services.
Initially, the NHSO would restrict its spending to only those who do not receive public health welfare as state officials and those who are not beneficiaries of the social security scheme.
However, Jadet said the NHSO has realised that the basic P&P services, which include vaccination, nutrition education and physical activity promotion, have to be universally provided and not restricted to certain groups.
The NHSO has also realised that if non-gold cardholders become ill, they can spread the disease so the fund should be used to prevent such diseases.
Jadet said Anutin has instructed the NHSO to find measures for using the fund for preventing diseases among other groups of people as well.
The Council of State, which is the government’s legal advisory board, has also confirmed that the NHSO can spend its fund to prevent disease among all groups of people.
As a result, all hospitals and public health clinics can now seek reimbursements from the NHSO for their P&P basic services retroactively from October 1 last year, Jadet added.
