Awareness on Health Insurance not satisfactory says, Telangana Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan

• Nothing will happen to me attitude must change
• Calculating calories is as much important as calculating currency, says Guv
• Governor inaugurated FTCCI’s Summit on Health Insurance Vision 2030
• During pandemic, Insurance companies settled 26 lakh hospital claims worth Rs 25000 crore: IRDA member
• 36 crore out of the total 140 crore population in India don’t have any health insurance cover’
• Out of 10 Crore Senior Citizens, only 1 Crore have health insurance, efforts on to modify entry age for Senior Citizens to 65 years

IndiGlobal Bureau

The Telangana Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan has stressed on simplifying health insurance policies so that more awareness is created resulting in more penetration and coverage. Health Insurance cannot be considered a burden or expenditure, she felt. She was speaking at the inaugural of the two-day Summit on “Health Insurance Vision 2030-Quality & Affordable Health for All” at the Federation House in Red Hills on here on Friday. It is being organised by the Health Committee of The Federation of Telangana Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FTCCI).

Addressing the gathering, Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan said, “In spite of so much development around us, awareness about Health Insurance in India is still not so satisfactory. Nothing will happen to me, attitude must change,” she said.

Unless we have a sound body and mind, nothing works. We are busy calculating currency but not calories, Governor said.

Our aim is to increase insurance penetration in the country. We have announced many reforms recently that would help in bolstering the ease of doing business, said SN Rajeshwari, Member (Distribution), IRDA in her speech later.

During pandemic, Insurance companies settled 26 lakh hospital claims worth Rs 25000 crore, she said.

 

We have Bima Bharosa in place which provides a gateway for policyholders to register complaints with insurance companies first and if need be escalate them to the IRDA Grievance Cells. We also have an Ombudsman (grievances redressal mechanism, where an official is appointed to investigate individuals’ complaints against a company or organization, especially a public authority) mechanism in place, the IRDA member said.

Speaking earlier, Anil Agarwal, President of FTCCI said we at the chamber realised during the pandemic the importance of “Health for all”. FTCCI with like-minded institutions, hospitals and associations have taken initiatives to address gaps in health care delivery by the creation of a document on Vision 2030—Quality and Affordable Health for all in Telangana.

Bejon Misra, Chair of Health Insurance Vision 2030 while addressing the gathering said the objective of this summit is to produce an implementable document at the end of the summit. And we are beginning this from Telangana. The reason for the same is that it is the hub of high- tech hospitals and medical tourism, he said. Insurance either by private or government, all must be covered he added.

A special issue (magazine) on the Health Insurance Vision 2030 Quality & Affordable Health for All was launched on the occasion.

Later panel discussions were held on themes namely reforms required in the healthcare delivery system, how to further improve government driven health assurance reach, role of intermediaries and technology providers to be more customer friendly and modernizing customer grievance redressal mechansims and to assure customer delight. Dr Atul Mohan Kochhar (QCI-NABH), BP Acharya (Retd IAS), Dr Dwarakanatha Reddy (IMA Telangana), Dr Hari Prasad (Apollo Hospitals), Rajiv Kumar Gupta (Policy Bazaar and Paisaa Bazaar), Srikanth Charan (Good Health Insurance), Nikhil Apte (Royal Sundaram), Rajiv Nath (AIMED), Sohanlal Kadel (Kadel Insurance Brokers) were among the healthcare leaders and industry leaders who elicited their views.

The objective of the summit is to develop innovative patient-centric health insurance schemes and products to improve accessibility, to assure affordable and cost-effective insurance products; to build awareness of existing health insurance, to further increase the health insurance penetration in Telangana, to achieve UHC(Universal health coverage) on a Public- Private Partnership (PPP) mode; to understand and find solutions to overcome the challenges in the health insurance sector and the existing Patient Complaint Redressal System.

Shekhar Agarwal, Chair of the Healthcare and Disaster Management Committee, Senior VP of FTCCI, M Jayadev, VP Suresh Kumar Singhal, Dy CEO Sujatha, hospital owners, government officials, policy makers, insurers, distributors and policy holders attended.