Health Insurance Coverage for Kidney Transplant?

Do You Know?

About 2 Lakh patients in India are waiting for organ donation, with a mere 15,000 donors available. The Ministry of Health’s calculation says that the annual requirement for kidneys could range between 2-3 Lakh, with a mere 6,000 transplants occurring in reality.

For better chances of survival, life-saving surgeries like Kidney transplantation are performed to replace specific organs in the human body.

Organ transplantation surgery is one of the major surgery, where the organ is removed from one person’s body and transplanted into the body of the other person. Therefore, organ transplantation involves two people, the donor (one who donates the organ) and the recipient (one suffering from organ failure).

Organ transplantation can be done for vital organs, like heart, kidney, liver, etc. It is a complicated procedure where the doctor has to match the organ between the recipient and donor.

The transplantation procedure is helpful for those people who are facing health issues due to organ failure. When any of your organs stop functioning and no medications and surgery can revive its functions, it is considered as organ failure.

Reasons for Kidney Failure

Kidney Failure can develop suddenly or gradually due to long-term damage. The possible causes of Kidney Failure include Diabetes, Hypertension, exposure to high levels of medication, extreme dehydration, kidney trauma or other factors.

Kidney disease is classified into five stages, ranging from very mild to complete Kidney Failure. The intensity of symptoms and complications increase as the stages progress.

Kidney Transplantation Cover

Recent medical treatments have led to the smooth replacement of malfunctioned internal organs with functional ones but at a much higher cost.

These unpredictable medical costs may force you to borrow money, take loans, burn through your savings, or both. However, to meet these unforeseen expenses, it is advisable to purchase a Health Insurance Policy that covers Kidney transplantation. Such health plans offer coverage to the policyholder up to a specified limit for organ donor expenses.

Tips for choosing the Kidney Transplant Cover

Kidney transplantation surgery is a critical surgery; it is pivotal to check the inclusions and exclusions of the policy.

While considering the plan, ensure that it includes:

1. Donor’s expenses – Organ harvesting and surgery cost
2. Pre-hospitalisation and post-hospitalisation expenses
3. Cost of consumables
4. Cost of post-surgery care, monitoring, investigations, etc., which might also cost high.
5. Choose the Sum Insured while keeping in mind the estimated treatment cost of organ transplantation.
6. To get immediate and quality medical care and treatment, check for availability of the nearest Network hospitals list.
7. Annual Health check-up that can aid in identifying potential health complications.
8. 24/7 customer support
9. Hassle-free claim settlement either through cashless or reimbursement facility.

Star Health Insurance offers Star Critical Illness Multi pay Insurance Policy, a standalone critical illness plan providing a lump-sum amount on diagnosis of 4 groups of Critical Illnesses covered in the policy. This policy covers the treatment expenses of kidney transplants, but the first diagnosis of the covered major disease/condition should have been experienced by the insured only after 90 days of commencement of cover under the policy. Also, the insured person should have survived up to 15 days from the date of diagnosis of such a major disease.

The policy covers major organ transplantation of lung, liver, kidney and pancreas up to the limits mentioned in the policy. Any person aged between 18 and 65 years can avail this policy. No pre-medical screening is required to take the policy, where the person proposed for insurance is up to and inclusive 50 yrs of age.

For more details on the policy, refer to policy wordings and clauses.

Conclusion

Undergoing an organ transplant surgery can lengthen a person’s life and allow those with a chronic illness to live a normal lifespan. Hence, a comprehensive Health Insurance plan is certainly required to manage the huge expenses of organ transplantation surgery and ongoing medical care.