Views by Mr. Sanjiv Bajaj: Digital Health Mission will be a game changer

We at Bajaj Capital feel that the new the Unique Health card announced by the honorable prime minister Shri Narendra Modi is going to be game changer for all the there concerned stake holders – the public/patient, the healthcare industry and the insurers. Till now this information has been fragmented and the onus of retaining the same has been only on the patient himself and that poses a huge challenge as most of us don’t have the technology or the skills to be able to do it. What this results in that when a person goes to a doctor he only has limited information available to him, what the patient has shown to him and he does his diagnosis on that basis so there is a huge risk that some critical information may get missed which may result in mis-diagnosis or allergies as the doctor may not be aware of the drug or food allergies that a person may have.

This can make a huge difference in the quality of treatment, especially in case of accidents where the patient my not be in a position to provide his medical history so this card will help save a lot of lives. This is also going to make a huge difference to insurers as now they know exactly what treatment was given so they can estimate the costs and ensure that no non required procedures were done at the hospital just to increase the billing which is going to help bring down the hospital costs. Mr Sanjiv Bajaj – Jt Chairman & Managing Director of Bajaj Capital also feels that “this will revolutionize the may underwriting is done in the insurance industry, now days every time a person wants a health insurance he is asked to go for tests which slows down the process of buying insurance and creates unnecessary costs.

Now if all the information is available digitally the underwriting can be done on that basis only which will result in much better underwriting for the insurer and this may bring down the cost of health insurance in the long run as well as enable a patient to buy health insurance much faster”. This may also result in doctors being more diligent in their diagnosis and treatment as this would also form a digital track record of all their actions which was till now available only in hospitals and all the GP’s were out of the tracking range, this will now complete the circle and bring all the information together by plugging in all the loose heads.

However everything good has a challenge and risks too which would have to be managed. The first and the foremost risk is the privacy risk, there would have to be measures to ensure that only the patient has the right to choose to whom he wants to share this information with or not unless in case of an accident where he may not be in a position to take that call. Healthcare information is highly personal and the right plus control on that has to be with the patient.

On the insurance side this may lead to a much more selective underwriting than what happens at present, on one side this may help reduce cost of insurance but on the flip side now with much more details being available to insurers they may even be more selective in underwriting which may lead to all the person at high risk being left without a health cover. However this risk can also be mitigated by the government and the regulator by ensuring that health covers be provided to the whole populations, maybe at different but reasonable cost to be people with different risk level but health insurance needs to be made available to all even those with high risk.

Mr Sanjiv Bajaj says “Behind more than 80% of the financial crisis that family goes through are a result of a direct or indirect health crisis in the family where one or other member gets sick and a lot of money and time gets spent on that and if that crisis happens to the bread winner then it even impacts the ability to earn and even if it is a close relative then a lot of time a person can not focus on work and the career suffers. While this can not be solved fully but having a good health insurance which enables the best treatment and ensures that the family has only a limited financial burden can help to a great extent”.

The insured is anyway currently facing challenges in this health insurance because he may have bought the policy online without any one being there to guide him and help him select the right product as only the more informed understand that health insurance is a complicated long term buy and for which you must have the help of a good insurance broker. They also face challenges at the time of claims as they have no one they can consult in cases of policies bought online, they end up seeking all their clarifications only from the insurer whose interest may be aligned to himself and reducing his claim ratio’s. So it is important that everyone like reviews their investment portfolio regularly they also need to regularly review their health insurance portfolio. Bajaj Capital has recently launched this service and at the moment it is being offered free but has seen a tremendous response.

So to summarize the Digital Health Mission is going to change healthcare in India and for the better and we can the respected prime minister for bring the technology to the benefit of the common man.

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