Employee health insurance platform, Plum, has said that demand for holistic healthcare among corporations rose 50 per cent in 2021, indicating these products’ growing popularity.
Plum believes a combined health insurance and healthcare benefits package could be the driving force of a comprehensive benefits programme for employees in the near future.
The Economic Survey of 2021 shows that India leads in Out Of Pocket Expenditures (OOPE) for healthcare, but it has contributed to variable expenses and poverty.
Plum’s Director of Healthcare, Jayanth Ganapathy, said: “holistic healthcare is the future.”
So, what do these healthcare packages contain?
A holistic healthcare package could include telehealth consultations, wellness initiatives, mental health support, and group health insurance.
Plum observed that employees aged 21-40 mostly took telehealth consultations over the past year. The top three areas of consultations were general medicine, mental health, and dermatology.
Abhishek Poddar, Plum’s co-founder and CEO, said that online doctor consultations gained tremendous traction during the pandemic, and the trend has sustained over the past year.
He added that it suggests the growing preference for such treatments among the workforce.
The company also highlighted some interesting trends regarding client bookings. Bookings typically surge post working hours, specifically during weekends and on Mondays. While 64 per cent of bookings came from metros, 36 per cent were from non-metro areas.
Healthcare inflation is real; it is no longer limited to hospital expenses. Hence, an all-inclusive preventive and curative healthcare has become a social responsibility, Poddar said.
