How to choose the best health insurance plan

A health insurance plan is a must for all individuals and families as it can protect you and your loved ones from the cost of medical bills in the case of medical emergencies. In fact, experts suggest purchasing the best health insurance for your needs as soon as you start earning. Having a health insurance plan will allow you to get the best medical treatment without burning a hole in your pocket, or negatively impacting your financial well-being. While selecting the best health insurance, you should always look for certain features and benefits, like critical illness insurance, high coverage amount, maternity and newborn cover, international coverage and OPD/diagnostic cover.

Before choosing the best health insurance, you must know the types of health insurance plans available in the country. These are:

Individual health insurance plans: This plan will provide you protection from medical emergencies by providing you coverage as per the terms of the policy. You must, however, keep in mind that the coverage of this plan is contingent upon several factors, like the age, existing health conditions and income of the individual. A key benefit of this plan is that you can customize it with riders or add-ons such as critical illness insurance accident cover and so on. These riders can increase the scope and coverage of your policy.

Family floater health insurance plan: This plan can provide health insurance cover to your entire family in an easy and hassle-free manner. Market experts suggest taking a family floater plan as it is more advantageous than taking separate individual health insurance plans for all family-members. For instance, Max Bupa’s Health Companion plan can cover 19 relationships in a single policy. This is the best health insurance plan for large families and the premium is affected by factors like the age of the eldest family member, family’s medical history and their city of residence.

Group health insurance plans sponsored by employers: These are provided by companies to their employees. These are basically standardized plans, providing similar benefits to all employees. As these plans have manifold exclusions, it is always better to supplement it with an individual health insurance plan.

Senior citizen health insurance plans: If you have someone above the age of 65 years in your family, then you can opt for this plan. You can insure the senior citizens in your family by availing the option of co-payment clause, where anything between 10%- 30% is payable by you, while the rest of the medical expenses is borne by the insurance company.

Critical illness insurance: This is of crucial importance while understanding the best health insurance plans. You must always purchase a policy which has critical illness cover. This plan will provide you with a lump sum amount in the case of being diagnosed with critical illness. This plan can provide you succour with potentially life-threatening diseases like:

• Diabetes
• Cancer
• Cardiac ailments
• Stroke
• Paralysis
• Kidney ailments
• Organ failure
• Viral hepatitis
• Muscular dystrophy
• Organ/bone marrow transplant
• Third degree burns

Once you are diagnosed with any of the critical ailments, you don’t have to keep waiting for funds. You can immediately begin treatment at the best medical facilities by availing this fixed benefit plan. With Max Bupa’s CritiCare plan, any individual between the age of 18 and 65 years can opt for critical illness cover for a sum assured of up to Rs 2 crore. This policy covers 20 critical illnesses.

Additional top up policy: If you want to increase the scope and coverage of your health insurance plan, then you can opt for add-ons, like accident care, which can protect you from accidents, temporary and total disability as well as with funds for accident hospitalization.

Understanding Mediclaim: Once you purchase a health insurance plan, your claim would be directly settled without the interference of any third parties/agents. Claim is the reimbursement request made by you to the insurance company. It covers hospitalization expenses, like fees of doctors and consultants, nursing charges, and cost of medicines/ medical supplies. You must, however, remember that you are required to be hospitalized for at least 24 hours to be eligible for filing a claim. Costs are also reimbursed in the case of few daycare facilities, like cataract and chemotherapy. What’s more, you can also claim reimbursements for a specified period after hospitalization for expenses such as follow-ups, diagnostic charges and doctor’s fees, based on the policy terms of the product you have invested in.

Exclusions to health insurance policy: Before selecting a health insurance plan, you must remember that certain medical conditions and medical procedures are not covered under health policies. These include cosmetic and obesity related surgeries and equipment like hearing aids, and non-prescription lenses.  

Conclusion: Thus, choosing the best health insurance plan allows you to deal with unforeseen circumstances and the uncertainties of life. It ensures that there is no shortage of funds in case you have to deal with a medical emergency. You can zero in on a Max Bupa Health Insurance plan, which comes with considerable flexibility and comprehensive hospitalization coverage. While Max Bupa’s Health Premia plan can provide you with benefits, like international coverage, maternity coverage and newborn cover from day 1 and in-built travel insurance, and the brand also provides cashless claim processing within 30 minutes. 

---