Health Insurance For Employees Working Abroad
Global expansion and doing business around the world is one of the contemporary business trends. This leads to growth of the number of internationally employed staff, as well as the number of employees traveling abroad on short- or long-term assignments.
It is better to think about staff safety and health insurance coverage while planning to expand your business into the other country.
Health insurance is an insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person meeting with medical expenses as a result of sickness or injury. It can include insurance for losses from accident, medical expense, disability, or accidental death and dismemberment. Insurer estimates the overall risk of health care and health system expenses over the risk pool and provides the money to pay for the health care benefits specified in the insurance agreement due to a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax.
Different countries have different healthcare and health insurance systems, that sometimes are a subject for changes.
For example, healthcare in Europe is provided through a wide range of different systems at individual national levels. Most European countries have private health insurance companies and government subsidies available for citizens who cannot afford coverage. All European Union countries offer their citizens a European Health Insurance Card which provides insurance for emergency medical treatment when visiting other participating European countries.
Most of the healthcare in Asia is delivered and maintained by each nation’s government. The level of medical care in Asia ranges from very poor to good, depending on the region, country, city. Thereby a good health insurance policy is essential in Asia. Private health insurance is a good choice due to the limited state-funded health insurance support in many Asian countries.
The quality of medical care in the United States is generally of a high standard. It is provided by private hospitals and clinics. Medical costs tend to be higher than in other countries. The risk of being without medical coverage is massive hospital bills or even no access to medical care. Certain visa types require employees to have health coverage. Often, an employer provides insurance that covers the employee and their immediate family. Since 2010 ObamaCare system in the United States imposed tax penalties for citizens who did not purchase private health insurance. President Donald Trump had eliminated the tax penalty after the end of 2018 and expanded the availability of short-term insurance plans that were not required to meet ObamaCare requirements. Now non-qualified insurance policies can last for up to one year and be renewed for up to three years.
In the Latin Amercia and Carribean region health care prices are much lower that in the United States. There are plenty of high quality facilities comparable to those of Europe and United States, but most of them are located in main urban centers. Rural and isolated areas may not have appropriate medical capabilities. There are health insurance providers for the whole region or for the country with individual, business, travel health insurance options.
Health insurance in UAE must be provided to employees and their dependents by companies. UAE nationals are covered by government insurance programs.
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Oman and some other countries are going to implement mandatory health insurance in 2019 or next few years. In some countries government insurance will cover local citizens, in others companies will have to provide their workers with health insurance. It is expected the reforms will take place in phases.
In Ukraine foreign residents, tourists, employees, students are obliged to have medical insurance for the whole period of their stay in the country. Medical care is provided by public and private sectors. Ukraine is going through National Health Reform Strategy that will end in 2020, and health insurance will be mandatory for all citizens.
Any company that is looking after its employees’ welfare and going to expand its business into the other country should think about health insurance for employees. It’s not so easy to select the right way of health insurance for every country so it is better to ask insurance and law experts that will help to carry out all procedures related to getting a health insurance for employees.
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