Providing tailored options for better Health Insurance

Indian Healthcare industry is on the cusp of transformation. There has been a considerable rise in technologies and transformation in the way healthcare is being delivered, especially with the rise of new age players. However, most aspects of the Indian Healthcare industry continue to follow a one size fits all approach, especially when it comes to health insurance. Less than 25 per cent of the population is covered with any form of insurance-public or private. The National Sample Survey (2016) reported that 85.9 per cent of the rural and 82 per cent of the urban populace is without cover. Only 13.1 per cent of the rural and 12 per cent of the urban population is covered by a government funded health insurance.

More than 60 per cent of a house hold’s income is thus spent on healthcare, pushing many below the poverty line. Bringing the World Bank statistics into perspective- 24 per cent of our population slipped below the poverty line due to increased costs and no cover. One of the major observations the report made was that the low awareness levels, both in urban and rural areas, restrict the reach of such coverages. Tailored health insurance plans, that takes care of individual needs at all levels, is the need of the hour.

Today, new age healthcare providers are emerging as one of the most affordable and feasible forms of delivering health care effectively. Technology driven start-ups have moved the facilities provided by hospitals to one’s home. They have also been able to play a fundamental role in launching early intervention programmes and shifting the focused of the industry towards preventive care.

On the role of new-age healthcare players, Dr Khan opined that, “India needs a holistic care system, one that is affordable, accessible and reduces OoP effectively.There is clearly a reach issue when it comes to covering our populace with health insurance and hence it calls for partnerships between the private, public and online players. A comprehensive insurance system will require increased investments from the private sector and successful collaborations between new age and traditional players. Start-ups can use their existing technological infrastructure and bring in new age practices to educate, securely gather data and make available the insurance scheme that are highly customised and connect them to an appropriate service provider.”

Traditional healthcare providers should utilise the mobile interface on which start-ups have established their presence to further their reach, use customer data to understand and curate better health schemes and insurance covers in the future. Technology will help the insurance sector tomake breakthrough innovations.
CallHealth for instance securely captures customer information from doctor interactions, diagnostics tests, pathology reports. The details captured is indicative of a certain disease / condition that a patient is being evaluated / treated for. This allows CallHealth to map diseases by geography, age and gender. These inferences are helping partner companies profile their customer base across various parameters, such as geography. Such data can help insurance organizations in product design that will cater to the specific needs of the market segment.

Some of the services for which CallHealth has started partnering with Health / Life Insurance Companies are:
• Pre-Policy Check (Screening the current health conditions of the customer opting for Insurance).
• Annual Health Check (After every Policy renewal a complete screening of policy holder is done to understand their health condition)
• Wellness Programmes to Corporate&Individual customers.
• E-consultations(OPD Services)
• Post Hospitalization care
CallHealth has inked partnerships with some of the leading names in the industry such as Religare, Star Health, New India, Future Generali and Bajaj Health Allianz Health Insurance. These partnerships are also enabling us to collaborate and bring together the various constituents of the eco-system, onto one platform- thus becoming truly patient centric- and help customers make informed choices with the range of information provided online. With timely intervention we can ensure quality health services, and also reduce the overall cost to Policy Holders and Insurance companies.