Trust in healthcare further erodes to 96.5% not trusting the healthcare system
S Singh
Healthcare issues have remained a challenge in India for a very long time. Overall trust in the healthcare system has deteriorated further with 96.5% of people not trusting the system. With 67.8% of Indians not trusting Hospitals. To add to this, the rising cost of healthcare has prompted Indians to focus more on health insurance. 62.8% of Indians believe having a health insurance policy is an absolute necessity and approximately 85% believe health insurance should be bought by the age of 30, indicates the GOQii-India Fit report 2019 titled ‘Insurance: An Investment in Health’.
GOQii, India’s leading preventive healthcare ecosystem today unveiled the fifth edition of ‘India Fit Report. India Fit Report 2019 is a result of a year-long study of more than 700,000 GOQii users – a first-of-its-kind report that presents a holistic overview on the health and lifestyle of Indians across different parameters such as steps taken, lifestyle diseases (Diabetes, Cardiac and Hypertension), BMI (Body Mass Index), nutrition, water, stress, sleep, gut health and immunity, smoking and alcohol consumption; all of which are classified according to gender and key cities. This year India Fit report has gone a step further to also look at what people think of Health Insurance and can it be looked at as Investment in health?
The report indicates despite the increasing awareness about the importance and need for an insurance policy, 20% of the respondents still don’t own insurance policy. The common notion that continues to prevail is that insurance is confusing to understand, a prime reason that discourages people from buying one. The high cost of insurance also deters them.
Approximately 90% of people believe healthier people should pay lesser premiums on their insurance policies. 70% are willing to share health data with insurance companies to get a discount on premiums.
The survey deep dives into insurance as that will be a critical aspect in the years to come for all individuals. Respondents strongly believed cashless hospitalization (87.9%) is the most sought-after health insurance benefit followed by medical bills reimbursement facility (67.7%) and better treatment in best hospitals (59.0%).
Most people decide to buy a particular policy due to the good quality hospital network it provides (42.3%). Further, people also buy a policy from a particular provider because of its easy claim procedures (41.9%) and an accessible hospital network (40.3%). Low cost, good coverage and benefits, simple terms and conditions are some of the other convincing factors for people to buy health insurance.
Further, the report indicates, 38.3% people between the age group of 20-45 suffer from at least one lifestyle disease ranging from Diabetes, BP, Cardiac issues to Thyroid, Acute GI and Acidity. In the last two years, lifestyle diseases have shown an increase. Cases of Cholesterol among people have increased from 10.1% to 14.1% this year, High blood pressure is on the rise, with an increase from 9% to 12%. This data signifies that a strong insurance system will be imperative for all individuals and GOQii is leading the efforts in this space, by being the first player to build a preventive healthcare model and showing the need and benefits of insurance, through this study.
Increase in lifestyle diseases and medical costs coupled with the lack of trust in healthcare has prompted people to get active and be healthy. This also arises from the fact that people are not wanting to spend their life being disease struck. GOQii India Fit Report 2019 indicates that as compared to 2017, in 2018, people are taking to running has increased from 22% to 33% among people wanting to be active. Cycling has increased from 10% to 15%. Conscious of being healthy has also led people to sleep and take rest more. The report reveals that Indians have slept more (6:51 hrs) from (6:32 hrs) last year.
When it comes to being healthy, Bangaloreans seem to be at the forefront. According to the report, Bengaluru has yet again topped the list of being the healthiest city in India beating Mumbai. However, the one aspect that is bothering Indians to a large extent is ‘Pollution’. Air pollution has been a killer in the last couple of years and the situation is only worsening. The India Fit report has studied 8 main cities on 3 basic parameters namely Air, water and food to find out how India has fared? The results have shown that Pune is the most livable city on air, water and food quality front and Delhi is most polluted in terms of its air quality.
Commenting on the findings of the India Fit Report 2019, Vishal Gondal, Founder and CEO of GOQii said, “Trust in healthcare has further deteriorated and there is a dire need to reimagine health. We are aiming to change and get people to move away from a reactive and cure based healthcare to a preventive healthcare system,”.
