The public healthcare in India is catching up with the ones of other developed countries. This makes it essential to purchase a health insurance cover. While the government facilities are trying to meet the healthcare requirements, it still lacks in the advanced facilities that are available in private institutions. Thus, the expensive private hospitals are the only refuge to seek standardised treatments. To make matters worse, the medical inflation rate is soaring and thus, medical treatments are met out of hard-earned savings. While this may not always be sustainable to spend life-savings for expensive treatments, a health insurance policy comes to the rescue.
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What is health insurance?
Before debunking the myths about health insurance, let’s understand what is health insurance? Health insurance plans act like a financial buffer that help manage the treatment costs. These expenses may be either related to hospitalisation cost, the cost of medicine, or even consultation fees. In addition, these plans also offer benefit like tax advantage wherein a deduction in your income tax return is available for the premium paid. Although tax benefit is subject to change in tax laws.
Health insurance is no one-size-fits-all approach and hence there are various types of policies. These policies are either based on the diseases they offer coverage like a critical illness insurance or based on the beneficiaries and age group it covers, like individual plan, family floater plan or a senior citizen cover. Selecting a policy is based on your requirement and thus, a careful analysis must be done before picking one. However, with a plethora of alternatives to choose from, there are often misconceptions that arise in the process. This article aims to debunk some of these myths helping you make a clear choice of policy. Let’s have a look –
Myth #1 – Health insurance covers only the cost of hospitalisation
It is a popular misconception that states the coverage of a health insurance policy is limited for hospitalisation expenses. The reality, in fact, is depending on the type of plan, the coverage is available. There are many plans that cover pre, as well as, post-hospitalisation expenses. Additionally, the expenses required for medicines are covered by policies. * Standard T&C Apply
Myth #2 – A family floater plan is expensive
This is generally assumed due to more number of beneficiaries under one insurance plan. In reality, the risk for the insurance company is spread across all the family members covered by the policy and thus is friendlier on the wallet as compared to buying individual policies for each family member.
Myth #3 – Pre-existing ailments are not covered
Any already existing ailment at the time of purchase of your policy is called as pre-existing disease. Most insurance companies extend their coverage to include such ailments. This coverage comes handy, especially for the elderly since the human body is prone to ailments as age increases. * Standard T&C Apply
Myth #4 – Minimum 24-hour hospitalisation required
There are misconceptions that state a minimum 24-hour period of hospitalisation is required to claim from your health insurance policy. The truth, in fact, is modern day policies offer coverage for day-care treatments too. Due to improving medical technology, not all treatments require elaborate medical procedures. Some of them are quickly done in a couple of hours like cataract treatment, chemotherapy, etc. So, you need not worry about such minimum hospitalisation tenure to avail treatment. * Standard T&C Apply
These are some of the myths that you must stay away when buying a health insurance policy. Not only do they hamper the prudent decision making process, but also steer you away from availing the right health insurance policy. When buying an insurance policy, remember that insurance is the subject matter of solicitation. For more details on benefits, exclusions, limitations, terms and conditions, please read sales brochure/policy wording carefully before concluding a sale.
