How a member initiates a medevac
Notifying CEGA
In most cases, a member (or a relative of the member) contacts our dedicated 24-hour emergency helpline at CEGA. Sometimes, the member’s local medical team call the helpline. In a few cases, the member’s broker has contacted the helpline! It doesn’t really matter how: as long as someone calls the helpline, we can start the medevac process.
Given the emergency situation it is rare that we get calls directly from our member, but it has happened. When this happens, we simply engage CEGA, our emergency assistance partner, on behalf of the member, and ensure that the member and CEGA have open channels of communication as the clinical assessments, and logistical arrangements are made.
Assessing the situation
Two teams at CEGA convene to progress the medevac case. The operations team gathers all relevant information about the member’s situation, while the medical team contacts the patient’s local care providers to establish the member’s medical condition.
If we don’t already know (very unusual), CEGA let us know about the member’s medevac case. We check the member’s policy for eligibility and hand over the management of the case to CEGA. Qian Huang, the Head of Claims at William Russell, keeps the senior leadership team informed about the case.
The operations and medical teams at CEGA work together to form a plan suited to the member’s situation. Here, we take into account several factors (which we explain below).