Money9 Edit | Ensure adequate cover for Covid homecare patients
With numerous people being forced to seek treatment at home in absence of hospital beds, insurance companies should reimburse bills they submit
The most prized gift to any COVID-19 patient in India now is a hospital bed. According to a research paper by the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, an organisation based in Washington and New Delhi, it is estimated that India has approximately 19 lakh hospital beds, 95,000 ICU beds, and 48 thousand ventilators. Unfortunately, most of the beds and ventilators are mainly concentrated in seven states – Uttar Pradesh (14.8%), Karnataka (13.8%), Maharashtra (12.2%), Tamil Nadu (8.1%), West Bengal (5.9%), Telangana (5.2%) and Kerala (5.2%).
As on April 29, the number of COVID positive people in the country is 31.64 lakh, which is 1.66 times the total number of hospital beds in the country. Considering that all hospitals/nursing centres are not admitting COVID patients and even those who do are not devoting all beds to these patients, the number of patients is far higher than the effective number of hospital beds, forcing a very high number to get treated at home.
Against this backdrop, insurance companies can come to the rescue of people if they reimburse the cost of treatment at home which basically comprises cost of medicines and consumables, doctor consultations and pathological tests. While public sector insurance companies are treating such claims sympathetically, most private insurers are avoiding it.
The government is struggling to stretch the healthcare infrastructure and it should also intervene, and, in consultation with the regulatory body, ensure such claims are not turned down. While home treatment bills are just a fraction of hospital costs, for the family it would mean a lot of relief in these critical times.
In the short term, such a step might dent the profits of insurance companies, but in the medium and long term, it might encourage a lot of people to buy new insurance policies.