Concretely, hospitals must verify the identity of the patient for the health services that they bill to mutual funds within the framework of compulsory health care insurance. This applies to both hospitalizations and outpatient care (including day hospitalization).
Insurance: forgetting period shortened for people cured of cancer
From January 1, 2025, the waiting period to take out outstanding balance insurance will be reduced for people cured of cancer or a chronic illness, under the right to be forgotten. This waiting period will now extend to five years, indicated the Minister of the Economy, Pierre-Yves Dermagne.
In other words, five years after the end of treatment, insurance companies will no longer be able to take this medical history into account to refuse outstanding balance insurance to these people.
In Belgium, the right to be forgotten was introduced in 2019. This is a protection mechanism put in place for people who have had cancer or suffer from certain chronic illnesses. This “right to be forgotten” facilitates these people’s access to outstanding balance insurance for a mortgage or professional loan, after a certain period and under certain conditions.
The right to be forgotten has already been extended to disability insurance and the waiting period after treatment has been reduced in two stages: from ten to eight years, then to five years from 2025.
