New India Assurance Launches premium Mediclaim product

MUMBAI: Leading state-run general insurer New India Assurance Company today said it will soon launch a new premium Mediclaim product as a part of its efforts to resolve the issue over the cashless health cover, which the state-run players had discontinued early July alleging inflated billing by hospitals.

The move is also aimed at bringing corporate hospitals under its fold, Ramadoss said, adding it is adding three Delhi-based leading corporate hospitals-Gangaram, Max and Medicity to its empanelled list of hospitals for this scheme.

The IRDA Chairman's remarks came a day after the Delhi High Court asked the insurance regulator to sort out the imbroglio over the cashless facility to policyholders in major hospitals across the country. The regulator, however, held the view that it could do nothing in this regard.

"We have long moved away from the administered price regime and it is for the market forces to determine the price of their products," Narayan further said, adding there might be co-payees or higher premium products for these five-star hospitals, which the insurers should decide.

Clarifying on the PSU insurers' recent decision to discontinue cashless policies, Ramadoss said, the company was never against cashless claims but wanted some clarity on the tariffs being charged by most of the hospitals empanelled, which the insurance industry felt were inflated.

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Experts from Medimanage.com give their opinion:

Sudhir Sarnobat:  

Sudhir Sarnobat from Medimanage.com

Though the idea may sound promoting the Free Market regime, there is inherent flaw in the thought process.    

  • In India, when the insurance is still not reached to masses, we are already jumping to provide benefit for Class. This way, we are also promoting the thought of luxury lifestyle in healthcare when thousands of people do not have basic access to healthcare.

 

  • How an ordinary person will know when he will need treatment at “Premium Corporate Hospital” hospital? The basic mistake is in classifying these hospitals as “Big Corporate Hospital”. They are tertiary care hospitals & are competent to handle complex cases. A person cannot predict when s/he will have disease that can be treated only at such hospitals. Then how such person will decide in life whether to buy such product or not.

The insurers should classify the ailments as primary, secondary & tertiary care and then accredit the hospitals on same basis. Then insurer could define the rates at such hospitals & ensure that quality treatment is made available at such hospitals for given price. If the customer still wishes to go to Tertiary care hospital (as per insurers, Big Hospital), s/he can do so but should be paid only the amount that one would spend at secondary or primary care hospital.

Mahavir Chopra:

Mahavir Chopra from Medimanage.com

I agree with Sudhir.

When does a common man like you and me take decision of going to a Corporate Large Hospital. It’s in most cases when the case is complex or an emergency. Like Purandar once said, If someone suffers from a stroke he needs to be taken to a place where an MRI can be carried out. He cannot avoid going to a large hospital just because his policy does not cover this hospital.

The mass population does not look at going to a large hospital for small surgeries like a cataract of a hernia operation, he/she would go to a local nursing home through reference of his/her general physician. What is being done here is penalizing everyone for some people with hideous intentions to misuse the insurance for cashing the best out of the coverage. More scientific caps/limits to common treatments would help in getting control over such claims. In addition to room rent limits which already brings in some amount of control, the associated costs increase due to higher room rent should be brought under capping under the policy wordings.