Considering the life expectancy of people nowadays with the advancement of medical facilities and technologies, senior citizen health insurance is a must for the people above sixty plus. These policies are good for senior citizens as it covers most of their medical expenses like hospitalization costs etc. Buying the best health insurance policy for the elderly people who we refer to as senior citizens become more important as during this span of life they need a lot of medical attention leading to subsequent expenses. They tend to get hospitalized frequently and sometimes need to address critical illness for a prolonged duration. Ignoring a policy for senior citizens may be a catastrophe as it will otherwise drain out their lifelong savings.
An insurance policy, taken for senior citizens also entitles you for tax benefits other than taking care of their medical expenses. But you have to bear in mind certain facts and restrictions which come along with the policy. In this blog, we will try to discuss a few of them to facilitate understanding them closely.
Pre-decided caps
A pre-decided cap termed as sub-limit is one of the important features to evaluate before buying a policy not only for senior citizens but also for an individual too. This is a pre-decided cap on particular facilities offered in the policy like costs to treat certain diseases, surgery fees, consultation fees of doctor and room rent etc. This sometimes comes as a percentage of the total sum assured also.
Insurance policies with sub-limits, refrain senior citizens from availing claim for the incurred expenses at the hospital for treatment. A partial claim is what they get in such cases and if they want to get rid of the sub-limit in their plan, they have to pay hefty premiums.
Combined payment
Combined payment or co-pay is a mandatory feature that comes with all the senior citizen health insurance policies. This clause in the policy mandates you to pay a predetermined amount of the total hospital bill which you have spent in the form of treating specific ailments or other hospital expenses.
To know the probability of getting the waiver for co-pay, you need to speak with your insurance provider well before buying the policy. He might offer you a waiver with a higher premium paying option.
Waiting period
You should not be overwhelmed by buying an insurance policy and start believing that you are covered from day one as only accidental hospitalization is covered in the early 3 days of policy inception. This remains the same for senior citizen insurance policy too, hence, you should be pretty much clear about the waiting period, etc. at the time of policy purchase.
Medical fitness
One good thing about senior citizen health insurance is that the insurance company offers a free medical check-up before the policy issuance process. There is no pre-policy health check-up charge levied, especially when the same is done in their network hospitals.
Additional benefits
There are many additional benefits offered by the insurance company in lieu of extra premium. Some of them are:
- Organ transplant and donation charges: By paying the extra premium you are eligible to get the cover for organ donation costs at the time of organ transplant.
- Ambulance services: Mostly all the insurance companies cover this charge but it is always beneficial to confirm this before buying the policy as some charges extra premium for this coverage.
Recommendation
As you all must be aware that the cost of medical expenses is increasing at a very drastic pace and is becoming out of control of the poor and middle-class families. Hence, in this scenario, having health insurance not only becomes important to senior citizens but also for individuals. Do not forget to go through all the restrictions in the policy before buying a policy for your elderly parents as this will help you enjoy the benefits hassle-free.
