Maait noted that the system’s price list currently covers 3,000 medical services extended to the subscribers.

“The UHIA’s Permanent Committee for Medical Services Pricing is in continuous session in order to revisit the pricelist of medical services extended under the authority’s umbrella on a regular basis in light of the annual headline inflation rate, the medical services quality, and the banking market updates,” the minister said.

For his part, the committee’s head Ahmed Abo Taleb stated that the committee includes international and Egyptian experts from public authorities as well as healthcare service providers and representatives of both the World health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank for the sake of setting fair prices for the services provided to the beneficiaries under the system.

“The pricelist of medical services is flexible and is subjected to the local market economic variables,” Abo Taleb said.

The World Bank, WHO, French Development Agency (AFD), and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) are set to provide Egypt with a facility worth $1 billion to finance the country’s universal health insurance system, Maait announced in October.

The current project portfolio in the Egyptian healthcare sector includes 32 projects worth $1.4 billion that serve Egypt’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) strategy, particularly the SDG 3 focusing on achieving good health and wellbeing.

Egypt launched the universal health insurance system in 2019 to be applied in five governorates: Port Said, Ismailia, Aswan, Luxor and Suez, with an aim of extending high-quality medical services to the public without discrimination at affordable costs for the entire family.