The hospitals with which the insurance company has a contract for the treatment of its customers are called network hospitals. To simplify further, these are the hospitals where your insurance company provides you with the facility of cashless treatment. That is, you do not have to spend out of your pocket to get treatment at any network hospital. Apart from this, if you have a policy in which you have to pay some percentage or a deductible, then it may be useful to know that in the network hospitals of the insurance company, you get cheaper treatment than any other hospital.
So we’ve checked off cashless facility and affordability - what about the number of hospitals in the network? Every insurance company wants to have the maximum number of hospitals in its cashless network so that its customers can get the best facilities. The number of hospitals in the network of different insurance companies also varies. In most health insurance companies, this number is more than 2,500. If you take myUpchar Bima Plus Health Insurance then you will get cashless treatment facility in more than 7,000 hospitals. Along with this, you also get the benefit of 24x7 free tele-OPD under this policy.
(Read more: Cheapest health insurance policy)
Another situation can occur in the case of network hospitals; however, it is rare, so it is not commonly discussed. Let us understand it with an example: suppose Rahul, a resident of Delhi, has health insurance, but his policy does not have the option of cashless facility. In such a situation, even if the company has 10,000 hospitals in its network and he gets treatment in one of them, Rahul will not get cashless treatment. On discharge from the hospital, he will have to pay the entire bill out of his pocket and later claim reimbursement with the TPA or the insurance company along with all the necessary documents. The company will verify the application and documents and transfer the claim amount to Rahul's account as per the terms and conditions of the policy.