5 Things You Need to Know About Health Insurance

Selection of best health cover

Health cover selection needs a thorough analysis of one’s personal needs and financial priorities. For some, the need may be getting a wide cover for family; for others, the need may be tax-savings. Here are a few criteria which can help you select the right health insurance plan.

• Lifestyle - Lifestyle is dependent on factors like occupation, income, city and food style. This  largely helps you to decide on the amount of sum assured you need to have in your policy.
• Life-stage - Select the premium amount depending on your life-stage i.e. single/married, with/without kids, student/working, etc.
• Health conditions - Recent hospitalization, if any, risky lifestyle, hereditary conditions, past illnesses are few health conditions which should be kept in mind when selecting a policy. Go through the illness covered in the policy and buy it for your future.

Difference between network and non-network hospitalization

A Network hospital is the one which signs agreement with a particular insurer for providing cashless treatment to an individual insured with that insurer. Whereas, non-network hospitals are the ones which neither signs any agreement with insurer nor it provides any cashless treatment. An individual has to pay for the treatment and claim as per the reimbursement process of the company.

There might be times when the network hospital may not provide you cashless treatment but the amount or the claim can be reimbursed later. Generally the cause of deal may be lack of documentations or issues where instant approval could not be provided.

Reimbursement of costs of treatment in non-network hospital

Every insurer has few hospitals in their network which provide cashless hospitalization. Actually, it is not always possible to get admitted in network hospital and some people wish to get treated in their trusted hospitals.

So, if you wish to get treated in a non-network hospital, then you are reimbursed for the reasonable expenses supported by the bills subjected to the policy taken by the policyholder. You need to contact the insurer beforehand or within 24 hours of admitting the patient with the following details –

• Health insurance ID card number
• Nature of illness
• Name and address of hospital/nursing house, contact number etc.

The claim is registered and the policy holder is provided with the claim number. The claim form is either sent to his home or faxed in the hospital. This form is to be submitted back along with the following documents –

• Doctors prescription and medicine bills
• Main hospital bill with payment receipts
• Medical reports/diagnostic tests
• Any other relevant details or documents

Purchasing health insurance online

Now you don’t need to run after agents, instead you can go online and visit various insurance comparison portals like policy bazaar, wherein, you can compare the policy in terms of premium paid, sum assured, coverage, benefits, etc. This time saving effort is sure to get you the best deal in best price. You can buy or renew the policy online and even pay the premium. Keeping you away from the fussy paper work, online insurance system is great to opt for.

Need of insurance even when fit

Even if you are young and healthy, never knocked at any doctor’s cabin for years, you still need to have health insurance. It basically covers you against unexpected mishappenigns like accidents or an emergency. It is not necessary for your health insurance to pay you for your routine doctor’s visit but it is designed with a larger approach of providing you cover against large treatment expenses like of illness or injury. Emergencies don’t dispatch a letter before knocking your door so it’s better to stay prepared to battle against any such event.