Residents of South get special health fund service

Those residents staying temporarily in less-dangerous areas can get community health services from another health fund.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Health Ministry 311 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Health Ministry 311
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Residents of the South who went to stay temporarily in less-dangerous areas can get community health services there from another health fund if their own health insurer does not have a facility there, the Health Ministry decided on Tuesday.
Revital Topper, the ministry’s official who supervises the health funds, wrote in a letter to the four public insurers that they should cooperate during the emergency to help displaced people even if they are staying in small settlements or villages where they have no agreement with other insurers on a regular basis.
If a member of a different health fund comes in asking for service, the insurer need only ask a few questions including information about where he is living temporarily rather than in the South. He will receive such services after identifying himself and a contact person speaks to the person’s own insurer, Topper said.
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She also asked the insurers to provide list of their contact persons to simplify this service until the end of the emergency. Her instructions do not prevent the various health funds from reaching agreements among themselves as long as this makes basic medical services more accessible to residents.
Meanwhile, Maccabi Health Services announced that residents of the South can get prescriptions for drugs on the basis of a telephone consultation with their doctor rather than seeing them in person during the emergency.
Call *3555 or 1-700- 50-53-53 for details.
Maccabi said that after speaking to their doctor on the phone, he or she will send the prescription to the patient and to the Maccabi Pharm pharmacy that the member chooses. The pharmacists will prepare the prescriptions in advance, and the patients will not have to wait in line. The service will also be expanded to the center of the country and the Jerusalem region.
The second-largest health fund also announced that its hotline staffers are giving support and advice on stress and anxiety of children and adults. The hotline, launched after the conflict began, has already helped 200 people The service, provided by social workers and psychiatrists, is open around the clock and open to members of all health funds, and not only those in Maccabi.
In addition, Maccabi branches in the South have been fortified so members will not be endangered when they go there for services.