Effect of Room charges capping on other expenses

Hey Rahul,

You are right. Let me explain by example. If you have a 3 lakh sum insured policy, your room limit would be 3000 per day. Say, you admit in a ward with 5000 room rent + nursing charge per day and the hospital bill comes upto 2 lakhs. Within this 2 lakhs, items on MRP (consumables, medicines) total up to 20,000 and the remaining 1.8 lakhs is services bill (doctor visits, room charges, diagnostic and lab charges etc).

As per proportionate concept, since only 3000 out of 5000 in the room rent is covered, only 60% (3000/5000) will be payable by insurer. So in the above example, 60% of 1.8 lakhs comes to 1.08 lakhs. Add MRP items to it, i.e. 20000, and so the payable amount becomes 1.28 lakhs.

Sometimes, within the bill composition, the services cost exceeds the policy specified limit. That deduction also becomes applicable then. In the above case, if surgeon charges are 80000 out of the 2 lakh bill, whereas as per policy, this cannot exceed 25%, i.e. 50000, then 30000 will be additionally deducted in the claim due to the unbalanced bill.

I hope this clarifies. Do revert if you have a follow-up question.

Thanks for your follow-up query Rahul.

Your first question had very limited information, so I am not in a position to advise whether you should port or not. If you could share age of your parents, sum insured in your National policy and any claim experience in the last 10 years, it would help me to advise better.

Just to clarify, if you have a sum insured, like 10-20 lakhs, then 1% room rent limit would be a big amount. Similarly, if your parents are upwards of 65 years, your options will be limited. If they're under the age of 65 and the coverage is in the range of 3-5 lakhs, then it leaves more elbow room for me to advise considering a better coverage plan.

Again, ONLY if the current configuration is not optimum, then we can either choose to upgrade sum insured in the current plan itself, or otherwise think about shifting to another plan if feasible.

Please reply back with more information and I will advise to the best of your circumstances.

Thanks Rahul for sharing more details on your policy.

Good you have a super top-up policy. The one that Star has, at 15 lakhs sum insured would be the Gold plan with Single Pvt Ward eligibility. 3 lakh deductible option is also good.

I think you should try and match the policy benefits in base policy as well as the top-up policy. If you have both from same insurer, you can enjoy cashless in both policies in single admission should the sum insured in base policy expire during admission. If base and top-up are from different insurers, then you'd have to pay from pocket first when the sum insured in base exhausts, and then claim it from 2nd insurer and wait to be paid.

Given that affordability of room limit in National policy will deteriorate over time and also considering you parents' age, I think you have a good chance to port now. I would suggest you should first prefer porting to Star Health's Family Health Optima (FHO) or the Comprehensive Health (CHI) plan. FHO may not agree for porting given the medical history, but it's cheaper than CHI any given day. Underwriting in CHI is little relaxed as it's a premium product, so it should be your backup. If Star doesn't accept porting request in any of these plans, then you've several other insurers to consider who have pvt ward limit or no room rent capping. That's a separate discussion infact.

But make sure you without fail mention all the Pre Existing Medical Conditions (PEDs) while porting. Be very precise in giving the information, history prior to National policy, history of claims in National policy and any other medical conditions for which claim was not filed but were diagnosed during the last 10 years... all need to be declared.

Porting is seamless is these precautions are taken care of. If you need more specific advice, I am reachable on anuj@sureclaim.in