Cashing Out

The downside of having cashless insurance has always been that big private hospitals had a tendency to charge more for a procedure than they would have had the patient not had insurance.  This is because the patients were more likely to afford a premium to the treatment since they had the backing of insurance companies.  The insurance companies, particularly the state-owned ones, are not pleased and have taken steps to protect themselves and their customers from such biased charging.  The insurance companies feel that not only does the company suffer as often claims are many times the size of the premium, but also that such overcharging reduces the sum insured for the patient for the rest of that year.

Thus, cashless system is going out of vogue.  Instead, the state-owned insurers have formed their own network of hospitals, which currently excludes many big private names, with the assurance that these hospitals will charge within the proper range.  Therefore all those who have opted for cashless hospitalization will do well to check up on their policy terms so that they are not caught in a quandary at times of medical emergencies.

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