Hospital daily cash plans act as a supplement to the standard health cover. Let’s understand this plan in detail.
The hospital daily cash plan is a health plan which provides a fixed amount for each day you are hospitalized. The amount paid is set at the time of policy and remains fixed. The program is a defined benefit which means that it pays a fixed amount irrespective of the actual amount of expenses.
So, if you are hospitalized with a plan which pays Rs.800 per day of hospitalization, whether you incur Rs.600 or Rs.1400 as actual charges would be irrelevant, and the insurer would pay a fixed benefit of Rs. 800 for each day of your hospitalization.
Hospital Cash Benefit may be offered as a stand-alone plan, as part of a health insurance plan or as an optional rider in some plans.
So a stand-alone Hospital Cash Benefit Plan will typically have these features:
- Daily Cash Benefit of Rs. 3,000 for every day of hospitalisation
- Daily Cash Benefit of Rs. 5,000 for every day of ICU hospitalisation
- Maximum coverage of 30 days in a year
Coverage under the plan
Daily hospital cash plan determines the coverage based on the daily allowance which you choose under the plan. The range starts from Rs.500 to Rs.3000. If the policyholder is admitted to the ICU, the daily cash allowance generally increases as specified in the policy. Some plans also allow the policyholder undertakes additional multiple of the cash allowance in case surgery.
Benefits of the plan
The advantages that a daily hospital cash plan provides are many. So, let’s understand them one at a time:
1. Blanket cover for those additional expenses
Your health plan does not cover some costs. Such costs are called inadmissible expenses and include surgical accessories, X-Ray charges, costs incurred by accompanying family members, etc. A daily hospital cash plan provides a lump sum amount in case of hospitalization, and this amount can be used as per the liberty of the insured. He can use the money for meeting such additional expenses or even for compensating the loss of income during the period of hospitalization.
2. Taking care of extra hospital bills
Even though your health plan would cover your hospital bills, in case of a huge claim, your health plan might fall short in meeting the entire claim. A daily hospital cash plan would help in covering up any extra claim you might face.
3. Preserving your No Claim Bonus (NCB)
If you are hospitalized for a minor complication, the bill for which is not very high, you can utilize your daily cash plan to pay for the hospital bills instead of raising a claim in your health plan. This would help you in preserving the No Claim Bonus of your health insurance plan which would have been lost otherwise.
Take the above benefits of the plan into consideration. These are the supplements or additions to your already existing health plans and never consider hospitalizations cash plans as a substitute because, in case of hospitalization, hospitalization cash plans provide for daily allowances, whereas your health plans offer coverage which cannot be foregone.
