Is Crohn’s Disease Covered by Health Insurance Plans in India?

What is Crohn’s Disease?

Crohn’s disease is a disease that leads to the inflammation of your digestive tract. It is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that can occur in any part of the digestive tract.

The inflammation is quite painful and usually spreads deeper into the bowel layers. In some cases, it can lead to life-threatening complications like colon cancer and thus, is considered as a critical disease.

At present, doctors are unaware of the exact cause of Crohn’s disease. However, they believe that certain factors can trigger the immune system of the body to respond to an infection leading to inflammation.

Some of these factors are a family history of bowel disorders, allergies, smoking, environmental factors as well as excessive consumption of oily and spicy food.

Symptoms of Crohn’s Disease

Some of the most common symptoms of Crohn’s disease are:

• Severe diarrhoea
• Abdominal pain or cramps
• Fever
• Fatigue
• Mouth sores
• Loss of appetite
• Blood in the stool
• Weight loss
• Malnutrition

In severe cases, inflammation of eye, skin, joints, liver & bile ducts, iron deficiency, kidney stones and delayed puberty in children.

Treatment of Crohn’s Disease

Crohn’s disease is a lifelong disease and cannot be cured. However, it can be improved significantly with a few changes in your lifestyle and dietary habits. In case the conditions do not improve despite these changes, then you will be required to see a doctor.

The doctor may ask you to undergo several medical tests, including blood test, stool test, x-ray, CT scan and MRI. In some cases, endoscopy or colonoscopy may be required for effective diagnosis.

In case you develop life-threatening complications, you may require long-term treatment or surgery that can get very expensive. Besides, body imaging tests like the CT scan & MRI as well as endoscopy & colonoscopy are also costly procedures.

Moreover, your doctor may also prescribe you steroids, anti-inflammatory and anti-diarrheal drugs, which may also cost you a lot.

Do Health Insurance Plans in India Cover Crohn’s Disease?

Yes. Several health insurance plans in India provide coverage for the medical treatment cost of Crohn’s disease. Since it is a critical disease, a lot of critical illness insurance plans in India cover the medical expenses incurred on the treatment of Crohn’s disease.

Under such plans, the insurance company will pay a lump sum amount to you as soon as you are diagnosed with the disease. The coverage amount can go up to Rs 25 crore depending on the plan you buy.

However, not all critical illness insurance plans provide coverage for Crohn’s disease. Therefore, you must check the list of critical diseases covered under your critical illness insurance policy to know if your insurance company will cover the treatment cost of Crohn’s disease.

Besides, regular health insurance plans will also cover the hospitalization expenses resulting from Crohn’s disease. It will also cover the cost of day care procedures, diagnostic tests, ambulance services, out-patient consultations charges, etc. depending on the policy coverage. Therefore, make sure to compare the coverage offered by different health insurance plans online before buying one.

Waiting Period to Cover Crohn’s Disease Under Health Insurance

Whether you have a regular health insurance policy or a critical illness insurance policy, Crohn’s disease will not be covered from day 1 of your policy tenure. Instead, you will have to first spend a waiting period, post which your treatment cost will be covered.

To begin with, all health insurance plans in India come with an initial waiting period of 30 days. But all critical illness insurance plans come with an initial waiting period of 90 days as well as a survival period of 30 days.

The above waiting period is applicable only if you are diagnosed with Crohn’s disease after buying your insurance policy. In case you have been detected with Crohn’s disease even before you purchased your policy, it will be considered as a pre-existing disease.

In such situations, you will have to wait for 2 to 4 years before you can raise a claim under your policy for the coverage of Crohn’s disease. The pre-existing diseases waiting period may vary from one plan to another. Therefore, you are advised to check your policy documents carefully to know the exact waiting period for pre-existing diseases.

Tips to Prevent Crohn’s Disease

Here are a few precautionary tips that you can follow to prevent getting diagnosed with Crohn’s disease:

• Eat a low-fat, healthy diet
• Stop smoking
• Drink plenty of water
• Exercise regularly
• Consume probiotics and multi-vitamins
• Reduce stress levels
• Do not consume alcohol regularly
• Get uninterrupted sleep of 8 hours

In a Nutshell

Once you have developed Crohn’s disease, you will have to deal with its effects for the rest of your life. Therefore, it is better to lead a healthy lifestyle and eat nutritional food to prevent the onset of the disease.

Nonetheless, we recommend you to buy critical illness insurance or health insurance for Crohn’s disease coverage. Do remember to compare various health insurance plans online to pick the best plan for yourself.