personal finance

In emergency, you can visit blacklisted hospital: IRDAI


BENGALURU: Irdai on Monday changed regulations on pre-existing diseases and emergency hospital admissions to benefit policyholders. Earlier, claims could be rejected if a person developed an ailment within three months of a policy issuance. Insurers say this resulted in uncertainty as neither policyholder nor the insurer could say definitely when a condition or a condition’s symptoms originated.

The new rules junk an earlier condition where insurers could reject claims as pre-existing if diagnosed within the first three months of buying a health insurance policy. Conditions like hypertension, diabetes, respiratory ailments — which are more chronic in nature — earlier would not get covered if deemed pre-existing.

Another change is that earlier claims were admissible in a blacklisted hospital only in case of emergency accidents. Now, that allowance has been extended to emergencies due to life-threatening conditions such as heart attack or stroke.

For Ayushman Bharat, the National Health Authority (NHA) has blacklisted some hospitals for charging patients who were entitled to free treatment. Hospitals also get blacklisted when they are found to be artificially inflating medical bills.

Apart from this, private and public sector insurance companies have their own internal list of blacklisted companies if they have indulged in corrupt practices.

“Most hospitals would like to overcharge us. We have a rack-rate system to deal with it. We tend to ignore medical inflation in the range of 5-20%. In case of blacklisted hospitals, inflation is much higher — in range of 50%,” said an insurance official.

Irdai has said insurers must cover expenses related to birth control. Earlier, the regulator allowed insurers to exclude covering any medical costs related to birth control, sterility and infertility treatments. “Is it morning-after pills, abortion pills or an abortion (medical procedure) itself that will be covered going forward. Earlier, induced miscarriages and lawful medical termination of pregnancy were not covered. Does this change? We don’t know yet,” said the head of products at a private health insurer.





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