The use of a medical insurance card by anyone other than its owner is prohibited. Because the fraud attempts increase, insurers look for an infallible identity verification system. Some are planning to adopt a fingerprint system.

Currently, BUPA is the only medical insurer to have implemented the fingerprint identity system. Only children below the age of four are exempt.  Its officials claim the system is effective and brings down the number of cheating attempts. 

Abdul Hameed Al-Basyuni, a medical insurance market expert, said some card owners find ways to sidestep the fingerprint system. The real card owner takes his sick friend to hospital.  After the cardholder completes the identity formality at the counter, his sick friend appears before the doctor pretending to be the cardholder.

The unlawful borrowing of medical insurance cards becomes particularly interesting to some when a treatment is expensive. “Such cheating could be detected if the nurse assisting the doctor would compare a patient’s identity card and insurance card,” said Al-Basyuni.

He added that only 10 percent of impersonations are detected, when a doctor finds inconsistent entries in a patient’s file.  Large companies like Saudi Aramco and Saudi Arabian Airlines offer medical service directly to their employees in private hospitals. Even these companies are studying the viability of employing a fingerprint identification system.