Once you get hospitalized for any ailment of illness having a health insurance is a big life saver. But depending on the type of policy you have chosen, you have an option of reimbursement and cashless health insurance.
Reimbursement is where you pay all the bills at the hospital and later claim it form the insurance agents after submitting he relevant documents and bills; while Cashless health insurance is where you pay no cash at the hospital and the insurance agents settle your bills directly with the hospital. Now that you know what both mean, let’s look at why Re-imbursement is better than Cashless health insurance.
Why you should choose Reimbursement?
Less premium
Reimbursement policy lets the insured choose a cheaper hospital as he is paying the money himself, and hence the premium will be less compared to cashless insurance, where the insured has to pay a high premium because the hospital will be an expensive one offering quality treatment.
Your choice of hospitals
While cashless health insurance service is offered at selected expensive hospitals that fall in the network of the insurance agents, reimbursement leaves you at liberty to choose any hospital you like.
Emergency
During emergencies, you will only look at getting the insured into the nearest hospital, but if that hospital is not listed in the insurer’s network then cashless service is not useful. But opting for reimbursement lets you access the nearest hospital without wasting any valuable time and saving the life of the insured.
No hassle of carrying details
For cashless health insurance policy, you need to carry the card number, TPA (Third Party Administrator) details, insurer details and other documents with you at all times, without which cashless policy is useless. If you do not have these details at the required time then cashless service will fail to help, while reimbursement does not require any such details.
Reliable
In some cases, cashless policy can get rejected at the last minute at the insurer network hospitals itself while consulting with the TPA and so cannot be relied on always. While in reimbursement you just need to collect all the reports, medical bills, doctor certification and other details to apply for claim to the insurance agents, who will look after the same within a matter of days with approval and reimburse your money.
Hence for these reasons a reimbursement health insurance policy works best if you have money to pay upfront and the cost encountered is less. Getting the patient or insured to the nearest hospital on time and giving the right treatment is what matters initially and the rest are all secondary and in that case reimbursement policy is certainly a boon than a bane.