The price points of various health insurance schemes are probably very high which take them out of reach for a section of society, according to Irdai Chairman Debasish Panda, who suggested leveraging technology to make it affordable.
Health insurance is a costly affair for many sections of society due to high operating and distribution costs, and hospital expenses as indirect costs and technology needs to be leveraged to bring down the costs and enhance penetration, he said while addressing the ‘Health Insurance Summit 2022’ in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Pricing is probably very high leaving insurance cover unaffordable to many sections of society, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) chairman said, adding that “We have to look at ways of reducing the expenses in order to make insurance affordable.”
The Irdai chairman suggested that advanced technological solutions can be the way out. “Can we have some kind of a digital platform…we are also pro-actively attending to the major industry asks,” he added.
The regulator, Panda said, is working on easing the caps on the expenses management as demanded by the industry.
The official also nudged the industry to come out with solutions which are pocket friendly as many times the out-of-pocket expenses for the consumables become painful for the insured despite having a policy.
“In hospital bills, a lot of consumables are used in patient treatment. It’s a small amount but painful for the customers. How do we stop that out of pocket expenses, what needs to be done…how do we take care of that? Can we come up with some kind of a solution?”
Besides, there is a range of issues that needs to be covered for example coverage for infertility, coverage for genetics-related diseases, coverage for living care, coverage for pre-existing ailments, Panda said, adding, for instance, a diabetic patient should not be denied coverage fearing heart attack in an inevitable.
While stressing that he understands insurance providers’ genuine concerns about providing cover in such cases, Panda said something can be done around the risk pool to cover such kinds of risks. It is time to ponder and come up with solutions.
Irdai is doing everything that can be done to increase the insurance penetration in the country, he said. Leveraging technology in the health insurance space from selling, settling of claims to servicing of policies.
