What is a Health Insurance Card and Why Do You Need It

The above plans and premiums are for AED 1,000,000 Sum insured for 1 Adult of 30 Years for Dubai city.

Your health insurance ID card is an important document to prove that your health risks have been covered. This card covers important details like your policy number, name of the insured person, and policy name along with the amount of sum that is insured. The health insurance card is issued by the insurance company at the time of issuance of the policy.

Once you buy a medical insurance policy from the concerned insurance company, the company executives shall dispatch policy wordings as well as documents that are associated with the health insurance card.

How to Use a Health Insurance Card?

The health insurance card may be produced at the doctor’s clinic or at the hospitals, which will entitle the insured to different benefits available with the plan of choice.
In case the insured has more than one health insurance card, they are advised to keep all their cards together. For instance, the person might have separate prescriptions or dental coverages. Or, the person might be covered by more than one plan.
The insured should make sure that all costs specified on their card are tallying with the costs mentioned on the policy brochure, and there are no discrepancies between the two.
The insured should review their ID card as soon as it is issued. In case there are any mistakes with the contents, or with the policy features, they should get the details rectified.

How do You Get Your Health Insurance Card?

After the policy has been purchased, the health insurance card will be handed over to the buyer along with the policy documents. Depending on the type of health insurance plan that has been selected, the card will have names of the insured individuals. The card also acts as an identity proof to ensure that the insured individual has a working health insurance plan by the concerned insurance provider. The health insurance card is the policyholder’s ticket to access treatment at the network hospitals enlisted by the insurer.

What Information is Available on Health Insurance Card?

The information on the health insurance card regularly includes the following:

Personal information: The card will have the name, member ID, contact number of the insured person. In case the person is covered through their employer, it is also supposed to have the name of the employer and their contact information.
Type of plan: The plan type indicates steps to follow to receive care. The types of plan may include Health Maintenance Organization, Preferred Provider Organization and Point of Service Plan. For instance, in a Health Maintenance Organization, a primary care physician is going to co-ordinate your care.
Benefits: These may include various health insurance benefits under the purchased insurance policy such as medical, dental, prescription drug benefits etc.
Costs: This is likely to include your deductible, coinsurance and copays. There may be different costs for in-network and out of network providers.

Benefits of health insurance card

Comes in handy for contacting the insurance provider instantly:

Health insurance companies have their helpline numbers, but in times of emergency, you may not be able to access them readily. This is where you can refer to your health insurance card for quick and easy access to your insurance provider. The emergency help line number provided on the card can be used for initiating health insurance claims or knowing more about your health insurance benefits.

Provides quick access to policy details:

While filling in the claim form, the person seeking insurance needs to mention their unique customer identification number or policy number so that all the relevant details might be verified. It is also possible that the insurance policy might have critical illness insurance coverage, and it is the responsibility of the insured to be aware of all the features and benefits to make the most of their insurance policy. It may so happen that in the case of an emergency, searching for the policy document might become a difficult task and the details might not be available handy. A health card in your wallet eliminates the hassles of the last minute search.

Eligibility claim is clarified:

The card acts as a validation for the claim that is being submitted. When the card is being presented for cashless treatments, the hospital is going to cross check all the concerned details of the person, and then validate their claim, as well as allow cashless treatments. This will also be applicable to any critical insurance claims when the need shall arise.

Cashless hospitalization facility:

Health insurance cards are especially useful when you are getting hospitalized in a network hospital. In case you wish to get hospitalized at a network hospital, the health insurance card is necessary. Upon its provision, all transactional claims can be handled by virtue of the card itself.

Validity date is clearly mentioned:

The health insurance cards have a validity date printed on them. After the validity expires, and when you choose to renew your health insurance card, a new card can be issued. Using the card, you can also check on whether your health insurance cover is active or not.

Conclusion

Given that all the benefits of the health insurance card in the UAE have been mentioned as above, it makes sense to carry the card with you at all times. In case an emergency strikes, and urgent hospitalization is necessitated, having the card in person might simplify matters since it can be presented to the hospital in order to avoid delay in cashless treatments. In addition, the insured should also inform their family about the features of the health insurance card so that it can be used in an emergency situation even when they are not around to use it themselves.