The price tag for getting sick is expensive. We often hear about others' life savings going down the drain mere days after they or someone dear to them had to stay in a hospital. More so if it’s a critical illness that requires costly and long-term maintenance.
Critical illnesses—which include cancer, heart attack, stroke, and chronic diseases such as diabetes—collectively account for more than 70% of deaths in the world. These are also consistently at the top of the list of mortality causes in the Philippines.
However, you may be able to completely heal or at least lead a long, healthy life despite your condition should you suffer from a critical illness with close medical supervision, better lifestyle choices, and support from loved ones.
It also matters to have the desire and commitment to manage your condition well and the emotional support from people around you. Your capability to shoulder the cost of hospital confinement, procedures, medicines, and other relevant expenses is a significant factor, too.
Furthermore, managing a critical illness may affect your ability to work and sustain a livelihood. This becomes more problematic if you're a breadwinner and have co-dependents who rely on you.
Preventive and responsive healthcare
In any case, financial readiness – especially in the form of insurance specifically covering major critical illnesses – can make a world of difference in these scenarios.
The book Care Without Coverage, authored by the US-based Committee on the Consequence of Uninsurance, associates health insurance coverage with better health outcomes for adults.
Take these book’s findings on cancer patients as an example: “Uninsured cancer patients generally are in poorer health and are more likely to die prematurely than persons with insurance, largely because of delayed diagnosis. This finding is supported by population-based studies of persons with breast, cervical, colorectal, and prostate cancer and melanoma.”
Note that the benefits of having comprehensive health insurance are not only after the diagnosis of a critical illness. Coverage provides insured individuals with the means to go for early screenings that could detect diseases in their infancy stage and hence, more likely to be treated and managed better.
An empirical study of chronic diseases shares similar findings: “Overarching conditions, including a lack of health insurance, influence the access to necessary health services, including preventive care. This lack of availability is associated with poor health and the prevalence of chronic diseases.
Covering all bases
Some health insurance policies don’t cover critical illnesses, so go over your contract's inclusions, in case these weren’t clear to you when you signed it. If you’re not yet covered, consider getting comprehensive health insurance soon.
You might be wondering: Is it really necessary to get covered from critical illnesses even if these don’t run in your family? Yes, because aside from your family’s medical history, other factors can put you at risk.
Lifestyle and environmental factors such as smoking, stress, and pollution have been shown to increase one's likelihood of acquiring these illnesses.
The financial repercussions of being uninsured are too great to be ignored. For instance, a single chemotherapy session for cancer patients alone could cost around P120,000. Meanwhile, the estimated cost of diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation for a stroke patient is in the vicinity of P1.8 million.
AXA Philippines takes critical illness coverage seriously. Hence, it offers several products to address this need for specialized coverage.
First is AXA Health Start, which provides the basic protection of health insurance plus coverage from the top critical illnesses (cancer, stroke, heart attacks). It comes with built-in coverage for critical conditions common to children, in case you have beneficiaries who are minors.
The second is AXA Health Max. This comprehensive critical health plan covers 56 major and 18 minor critical illnesses until the beneficiaries reach age 100.
Third is the Critical Illness Booster, which can be availed as a rider to your AXA Health Care Access plan, a comprehensive health insurance plan covering inpatient, outpatient, and emergency care. With this booster, you will be eligible for additional cash benefits upon diagnosis of any of the 56 identified critical illnesses.
Consider looking into these products for yourself and your family so you can be protected from the financial burden brought by critical illness diagnosis and management.
Know you can game plan your financial readiness in case of critical illnesses. Talk to an AXA financial advisor today.
