Healing Fields is a non-profit organization dedicated to making health care affordable and accessible to poor, underprivileged and marginalized people in India. Founded in 2002, the Foundation has provided health insurance to over 65,000 individuals from low income communities across four states in India, in partnership with over 50 hospitals and 19 NGOs. Recognized as a pioneer in the micro-health insurance industry, Healing Fields has created benchmarks and evaluation measures for the improvement of the medical service delivery system for the poor that are in use throughout India.
In January 2007, Healing Fields concluded a three-year pilot – “Breaking the Cycle of Despair: Health care Financing Delivery Project” – in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to explore the viability and design of micro-insurance schemes in India. Based on rigorous analysis of rural, urban and tribal health needs assessments, Healing Fields, in association with HDFC CHUBB (now HDFC Ergo General Insurance Company), developed a unique micro-health insurance product called Pariwar Suraksha Bima (PSB) based on a Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) model.
The pilot project involved the creation of a health education, financing and administration “ecosystem” for the poor. The ecosystem consisted of a community of people unable to afford treatment for primarily common yet dreaded diseases, private/public insurance companies, TPA, a group of secondary and tertiary care hospitals (providers), and Self-Help Groups (SHGs) managed by Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) or co-operatives.
During the three years of the pilot implementation, the loan taking rate to meet health care expenditure was reduced by 70% among the insured population and the savings enjoyed by members on health care expenditure was more than Rs. 26,000,000.
