Health insurance coverage in India increased sharply to 47.4% in rural areas and 44.3% in urban areas during the last eight years, according to the 80th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS).
Health insurance coverage in 2017–18 (the year in which the 79th round of NSS health survey was conducted), was only 14.1% in rural and 19.1% in urban populations. Government-sponsored schemes accounted for the majority of enrolments, covering 45.5% of the rural population in 2025 compared with 12.9% in 2017-18. In urban areas, the government sponsored schemes covered 31.8% of people, up from 8.9% earlier.
The latest survey "Household Social Consumption: Health" was conducted during the period January to December 2025 and published by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) Government of India on 20 April 2026.
The survey findings have shown that the estimated average out-of-pocket medical expenditure per hospitalisation case (excluding childbirth) during the last 365 days was about INR34,064 ($362) (INR31,484 in rural and INR38,688 in urban), while the median out-of-pocket medical expenditure was about INR11,285 (INR10,500 in rural and INR12,400 in urban).
Some of the key findings of the survey include the following:
• The highest proportion of individuals reporting illness was observed in the age-group 60 years and above (43.9%), followed by those aged 45–59 years (22.5%) and children aged 0–4 years (9.9%).
• Infections and respiratory ailments were most frequently reported during childhood and adolescence, while psychiatric/neurological and gastrointestinal conditions peaked in young adulthood.
• Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardio-vascular (hypertension) and endocrine/metabolic (diabetes) were most frequently reported after the age of 30 years.
• The average number of instances of hospitalisation (i.e. instances wherein persons received in-patient treatment) was 2.9 among 100 persons in the last 365 days preceding the date of the survey. Persons in urban areas (3.2%) reported more hospitalisations than persons in rural areas (2.7%).
• Infections were the leading cause of hospitalisation at 20.7%, followed by injuries (11.2%), and cardio-vascular and gastro-intestinal conditions (10.9% each).
• In public hospitals, the average expenditure per spell for out-patient care during the last 15 days was about INR289 and the median was almost nil, indicating that half of the treatment episodes in public hospitals received healthcare free of cost.