And the pension portion of the website will "go-live" shortly, according to Valerie Robinson-James, the Acting Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health.
Previously the social insurance site included the HIP claim forms, but with the more accessible site, Ms Robinson-James said the Ministry hopes to include the ability to submit claims, pay premiums and deal other administrative matters.
She said: "With the HIP Automation project, we envision eventually offering a website to the public that allows policyholders to: submit claims; pay premiums; apply for coverage; track the status of claims; and, print statements online.
"The anticipated 'go-live' date for this site is a minimum of 12 months away. However, long before the automation project is implemented, we will have a media campaign to coincide with the new benefits being added under HIP for August 1, 2008.
"This campaign is currently being developed."
The current site is accessible through the Bermuda Government website, www.gov.bm, and has application and claims reimbursement forms available right now.
With the help of the Department of E-Government and the staff of the Department of Social Insurance to design the new site and finalise its content, it is not part of the off-the-shelf software purchased by HIP.
HIP has been plagued by backlogs in payment of claims that at one point stretched back almost five years and recently Permanent Secretary Warren Jones, had said this would be cleared by the end of this month.
Helping them with this backlog was not only the off-the-shelf, computerised system but additional staff had also been added to the Social Insurance Department.
Ms Robinson-James said: "This (the update) is not part of the off-the-shelf software purchased by HIP which is used only by HIP internal staff to enter pharmacy, office visit and home visit claims.
"The site software contains HIP's benefit rules, adjudicates the claims and provides HIP with correspondence and accumulator reports."
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Robyn Skinner
Quelle/Source: The Royal Gazette, 16.07.2008
