Lower your medical costs with home healthcare insurance

The need for home healthcare may arise at any point of time, sometimes for a short time or even for an extended duration. In today's fast-paced world, people have multiple needs and they find it difficult to strike a balance between their professional and personal lives.

In such a scenario of tremendous workload, anyone needing full-time medical care at home becomes a cause of tremendous family turmoil. It further adds to the frustration if people have to quit their jobs and be at home to attend to medical requirements. It is not easy for a nursing mom to take care of her baby and manage her office work at the same time. She may require someone with hands-on training to help her with her baby.

Also, your grandfather who has undergone bypass surgery is now completely bedridden will also need round-the-clock care. This is where home healthcare providers come to the rescue by providing a comprehensive array of services at the comfort of your homes. For services like home healthcare insurance companies have introduced several policies and coverage options as per your needs and specifications.

Importance of home healthcare insurance

Home healthcare insurance lowers the overall healthcare cost, helps the patient to recover faster, cuts down hospital readmission costs, and most importantly, keeps the patients in an atmosphere they feel comfortable in.

Insurance claims can be significantly lowered with right product structuring and framework to service the patients. Home healthcare insurance helps hospitals to gain financially and serve more patients with reduction in cases of bed shortage by avoiding unnecessarily long stays.The ability to remain in your own home and get cured is one of the greatest benefits of owning home healthcare insurance. Often, the longer the waiting period before benefits begin, the longer the company will pay for your care. Benefit periods range from three to five years and are related in terms of the maximum daily benefit over the number of years in the benefit period.

People who can get benefit from it

Those who have undergone a surgery and are hospitalised can directly benefit from such policies. Apart from the insurance claim, patients and families suffering from chronic conditions,remaining bedridden or experiencing mobility issues, medical nursing needs or post-surgery rehab in cases like knee surgery, stroke recovery can directly avail such services for faster and comfortable recovery.

Things to consider before opting for home healthcare insurance

Insurance products provide only part of the total claims for specific services and products. Most of the insurance companies cover post hospitalisation support for 30-90 days with capping the amount for home support. Specific services and products such as doctor visit, surgical consumables and repeat visit to the doctor are covered under insurance. Most of the insurance companies are yet to cover the aspect of long-term care patient care.

One should try and choose healthcare services and deals only from registered, recognised and reputable companies. A large number of local agencies has cropped up in this space and claim to provide services without conducting a proper background check of caregivers and medical professionals.

The cost for home healthcare insurance depends on a number of factors including where you live and the type of care you need. The regulator, insurance companies, service providers and hospitals need to design the framework, boundaries and define the scope of the same to make it a mainstream product for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Normally people in majority are comfortable in their own homes and feel safe with their loved ones. Therefore, it is necessary that all the healthcare providers and insurance companies amalgamate home healthcare services delivery by promoting home healthcare as a sustainable and alternative option that is immensely beneficial as compared to an unsupervised and fragmented support system.

The writer is CEO & co-founder, Care24