With advancement in medical technology, cost of healthcare is rising rapidly. Any unforeseen medical emergency can impact your financial commitments adversely by hampering your existing savings and cash flows. Health insurance is an ideal option to secure you and your family against health-related contingencies. With the rising competition in the health insurance market place, there are diverse range of health insurance plans available to suit each individual’s unique requirement. However, to choose the best suitable plan for you, you must evaluate your specific need and understand what exactly is covered under health insurance plans.
Health insurance plans come in both individual and family floater form to suit varying requirements. Apart from tax benefits, health insurance protects you and your family from unforeseen medical expenses. Insurance companies are tied up with various hospitals (networked hospitals) across the country to provide cashless healthcare facilities to the customers. This helps you receive the needed medical care at the right time without any financial hassles. Here are some important health care benefits covered under health insurance policies.
Contents
1 – Medical expenses and emergency care
Health insurance policies cover expenses incurred for in-patient hospitalisation due to health issues, illnesses and injuries. The expenses for the following are usually covered under a health insurance plan: room rent, other boarding charges, operation theatre charges, intensive care unit charges, medical practitioner and nursing fees, pharmacy bills for the medicines prescribed by the doctor, laboratory test charges and any other diagnostic procedure costs, anaesthesia and blood transfusion charges and cost of surgical procedures. Your exact cover may vary from plan to plan depending on the terms and conditions of the policy. Some policies may offer coverage with sub limits.
2 – Pre and post hospitalisation cost
Health insurance policies cover medical expenses incurred before the hospitalisation and after the hospitalisation. However, there will be restriction on number of days. Some policies may provide coverage for 30 days and some may cover for 60 days prior to hospitalisation depending on the terms and conditions of the policy.
3 – Day-care treatments
Treatment for certain illnesses would not require hospitalisation and can be done in less than 24 hours. Day care treatments like angiography, colonoscopy, prostate treatments, dialysis, appendectomy and chemotherapy etc. which are undertaken for in-patient care in a hospital or in any day care centre are covered under the health insurance plan. Conditions on applicability of cover may vary from plan to plan.
4 – Domiciliary treatments
Health insurance policies also cover domiciliary treatments. These are the treatments taken at home that lasts for more than three days which otherwise need a treatment at hospital in the normal course.
5 – Mental illness
IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority in India) issued a guideline recently to include mental illnesses under health insurance cover. Hence, treatments like psychotherapy, counselling for mental disorders etc. are now covered under the health insurance policies.
Apart from above benefits, health insurance plans cover pre-existing illnesses (after completion of waiting period), emergency ambulance charges, regular health check-up charges, hospital daily cash benefits, maternity benefits and new born baby vaccination charges etc. Also, there are various health insurance plans that specifically cover specific diseases and terminal illnesses. Health insurance plans also come with various optional riders which can be availed at an extra cost. There are also policies specifically designed for senior citizens.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, understanding the health insurance benefits offered by various health insurance covers can help you compare and choose the right plan that can suit your health insurance needs. With the diverse options and digital services, buying health insurance is quite simple and easy. Evaluate your requirement, understand the health insurance benefits, compare and make an informed choice.
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