Industry body Ficci has urged the government to make health insurance mandatory for students from nursery to college and realise premium through academic fees.
This would bring a large proportion of the population under the health insurance net. Also, since this segment intrinsically requires less hospitalisation and more of treatments in the out patient department and general physician (GP) based care, it would strenghthen the primary care, the study rationalises. “Since the cost of servicing this segment would be relatively low, this would be a profitable segment for the insurers. The cost of customer acquisition would also be low, at the same time widening the coverage,” said the study.
The report urges the industrty to make primary care and GPs as the first line of treatment for insurance cover. “It is important that health insurers become catalysts in pushing back the hospitalisation centricity of treatment for insured people. They should make it mandatory for the first line of treatment to be taken either at primary care centres or through GPs” the study said. Private health insurance in India has a penetration of only 4.22% of the population. Even after adjusting BPL families which are covered by government schemes and excluding those in rural areas, 14.3 crore people in urban areas alone remain untouched by any form of health insurance.