Health insurance is the true saviour when it comes to combating the rising healthcare costs. But it doesn’t work too well when it comes to providing the coverage for preventive measures such as doctor’s advice and diagnostic tests. The expenses incurred on preventive measures constitute a substantial fraction of the total expenses incurred on health care segment as a whole. 

That’s where Preventive Health Care Plan comes into picture. There are clear differences between a preventive healthcare plan and a health insurance plan. Health insurance comes with exclusions on diagnostic and preventive services while preventive healthcare is solely designed to cover diagnostic and preventive services.

In a recent interview, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, Indian Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare said that India is currently witnessing a shift from treatment to prevention. This shift is expected to cut healthcare costs.

Preventive care becomes all the more important in case of lifestyle related diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, heart attack and so forth. That is because in case of such ailments, the preventive measures play a far bigger role than the treatment itself.

According to the industry experts, there’s a clear link between unhealthy lifestyle, lifestyle related diseases and stagnant economy. An undeterred focus on preventive health care results in an overall betterment of health which in turn increases on-the-job productivity leading to economic development.

Recently, Indian Health Organization (IHO), a subsidiary of Aetna Inc. US, launched ‘Preventive Health Care Plan’, a first of its kind preventive healthcare package in India. The plan was introduced with an endeavour to make the costly preventive care a bit more affordable to the common men. IHO joined hands with 12,000 medical providers across 25 cities building nation’s largest network of medical professionals. Policy Bazaar, India’s number one online insurance portals, has collaborated with IHO to make this plan available to its wide network of customers.

With such initiatives going on, it seems inevitable that preventive health care is going to pay a bigger role in shaping the future of Indian health care industry.