Medical Insurance Providers Encouraged to Deliver Genetic Tests

Members of the International Private Medical Insurance Magazine have suggested embracing genetic tests for an efficient client healthcare.

Welcoming Genome Testing 

Generali Global Health (GGH) has been one of the pioneers in including genomics within its company medical policies. Genetic tests for cancer patients are offered as an optional service under the programme Global Choice since 2017. It’s believed the testing service can help associate doctors to make wiser medical decisions as well as facilitating medicine and treatment selection.

Many insurers have backed up genomics declaring that apart from the obvious medical potential, testing can also help to optimize resources and contribute to an enhancement of the medical output.

Personalized Predictive Treatments 

Testing can facilitate medical diagnosis and can help to save lives. But besides bringing many benefits from a medical point of view, genetic tests open the door to some extra costs deriving from early diagnosis as once known a person has a genetic predisposition to a certain disease, preventive measures need to be implemented in advanced.

Not only that, early diagnosis could be bringing changes in parallel treatments to avoid development of detected congenital disorders.

However early identification of congenital patterns can help both illness monitoring and prevention so predictive treatment is looming as a starting point of a short-term medical revolution.

Should insurers invest in genomics?

Investing in genetic testing is foreseeable and supported by many members of the insurance association. Obviously the wider the medical offer is, the more reliable insurance policies can become so genetics could be only bringing advantages to the medical industry. Economic benefits deriving from genomics implementation are also expected, but not fully guaranteed. Health insurance providers must be responsible with their health quality provision to make the most of their offer and ensure the highest medical standards to policy holders.

Are genomics ready to be implemented in insurance underwriting or is the genetic innovation still too primitive? For example, if a client is predisposed to a genetic medical condition is that a guarantee they will suffer from it and should their premium be increased on this assumption?

HCI has been following developments with curiosity, excited as always to see medical progress suggesting the health insurance industry reinventing itself one more time.