Importance of Health Insurance Policy for Kidney Failure Treatment in India

Kidney failure is a condition when a kidney stops working. In such cases, one kidney or both the kidneys cannot function properly, which in turn can lead to kidney treatment procedures. Kidney treatment might involve processes like dialysis, transplants, imaging, scanning, blood tests, hospitalisation, day-care and so on. All these procedures involve large expenses, which can be saved by purchasing comprehensive health insurance for kidney patients.

Let us take a look at the condition of kidney failure and its details to know how your health insurance for kidney failure can save you from such expenses.

How Kidney Failure Occurs?

Kidney failure doesn’t take place overnight. It is a process that takes place gradually. You can track the damage done to your kidney by the Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) test, which monitors the functioning of your kidneys. There are different stages that estimate kidney conditions depending on the score revealed in GFR.

The scores 90 – 100 signal mild damage to kidneys, while the score of 60 – 89 shows increased damage where kidneys are still functioning.  A score between 30 – 59 would mean mild loss of function to severe damage to kidneys. If the score is anything between 15 – 29, it means extreme damage, while a score below 15 shows that the kidneys have failed or stopped functioning.

Symptoms of Kidney Failure

Here are some common symptoms of kidney failure:

• Urine volume goes down
• You feel breath shortness
• You may experience constant nausea
• There may be pain or pressure in the chest
• The ankles, legs and feet might get swollen
• Drowsiness and fatigue
• Confusion
• Seizures

How to diagnose Kidney Failure?

Blood tests, urine tests and imaging and scans are the best ways to diagnose the condition of kidneys. Blood test shows how effectively the kidney is filtering blood and how the kidney is performing the waste removal process. Urine sampling is another best option to learn about the efficiency of the kidneys’ filtration process.

Further, you can also get scans and imaging like ultrasound, MRI, CT urogram and so on to see if any abnormalities are seen in the kidney functioning.

Who is at higher risk of kidney failure?

Though kidney failure is common these days. But people who are suffering from the below mentioned diseases are more prone to kidney damages than others:

• People who are diabetic
• People suffering from heart disease
• People who have abnormal kidney structure
• People who have consumed painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs for long
• People who have high BP or Hypertension
• And People who have a history of kidney disease in the family

How to treat kidney diseases?

The failure of the kidney can lead to severe or mild conditions. In the case of mild cases, various treatments can be used to cure or limit the process. So, mild conditions can be treated with medication as well as regular check-ups like blood tests and other tests.

In case of severe conditions, the treatment may be dialysis or kidney transplant.

Dialysis

Dialysis does the job that the kidney performs that is to filter blood artificially. There are two types of dialysis:

• Hemodialysis – In this case, a machine is used to clean your blood on a regular basis, which requires the patient to visit the hospital a few times in a week.
• Peritoneal Dialysis – In this process, the patient gets a bag with the dialysis solution fixed to the lining of their stomach. The solution sits in the lining of the abdomen of the patient which absorbs the waste fluids and products.

Kidney Transplant

Another treatment for kidney disease is to get a kidney transplant surgery to remove the failed kidney and replace it with a healthy kidney.

Best Health insurance policies Covering Kidney Failure Treatment

As discussed above, kidney failure is a critical illness that requires a lot of money for treatment. Hence, it is very important to have health insurance to stay safe from such situations. There are many health insurance policies offered by renowned companies that allow lump sum amounts in case of critical illnesses like kidney failure. Further, some plans allow you to claim benefits for day-care treatment, dialysis, medicine, hospitalisation stay, transplant cover and so on.

Here are the top 5 plans of health insurance for kidney diseases:

Plan Name	Entry Age	Sum Assured
Bajaj Allianz Critical Illness	Adults 18 to 65 years Dependent children 6 to 21 years	INR 50 lakh (cover 10 critical illnesses)
Bharti AXA Super Health Insurance Policy	Adults 18 to 65 years   Dependent children 5 to 23 years	INR 5 lakh to INR 1 crore (cover 20 critical illnesses)
Care Critical Illness Plan	5 to 50 years	INR 10 lakh to INR 1 crore (cover 32 critical illnesses)
HDFC Ergo- Critical Illness Plan	18 to 65 years	INR 5 lakh to INR 10 lakh (cover 15 critical diseases)
Max Bupa Critical Illness Insurance	Adults 10 to 65 years   Dependent children 1 day to 21 years	INR 2 lakh to INr 2 crores (cover 20 critical illnesses)