The Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) believes insurers are not doing enough to promote its data on healthcare quality from practitioners and hospitals to patients.
The body also urged advisers to direct their clients to its website to help inform their treatment decisions when making a claim.
PHIN chief executive Dr Ian Gargan, who was speaking on the second day of Health & Protection’s Health Summit, said he did not believe insurers on the whole were doing enough to promote the PHIN site.
“Some of them are – but we think they can do more for sure,” Gargan (pictured) said.
“If you phone Axa and you’re waiting to talk to a customer service agent, they will say go to PHIN and their letters have PHIN as they are mandated to do it, he added.
Advisers directing clients
And Gargan emphasised that he wanted to see advisers being willing to direct their clients to the organisation when planning treatment, with the aim of patients using its data as the “gold standard” to inform their choices around private healthcare.
“That is the ultimate aim of the team – to build that website so it does that. But also that our data has integrity, it’s accurate,” Gargan continued.
“That’s exactly what we want to happen – that on the tip of their tongue they know that PHIN has the data and can give you an accurate picture of where to get the best healthcare for you if you’re going to go into the private sector.
“But also gives you an idea of what healthcare outcomes look like so that you can ask the right questions if you decide to go into the public sector and not use the private. So it’s an educational platform as well.
“Success for PHIN would be for everyone to go to the PHIN website. There’s lot of traffic and patients can navigate it and feel happy that they understand the information,” he concluded.
