Before you start

Employer group medical cover, or a private policy bought yourself
Vaccinations appropriate to India — typhoid and hepatitis A as a baseline
A hospital identified near your home before you need one
An indoor air purifier, before November

Step-by-step

1
Read the group policy, not the summary slide
Check the sum insured, the daily room-rent sub-limit, disease-specific sub-limits, maternity terms, waiting periods for pre-existing conditions and whether dependants are included. Cover normally ends the day your employment does.
Via employerWho: You and HRFirst month
2
Top up with a super top-up or an international policy
Indian super top-up policies are cheap and lift a thin group ceiling substantially. An international policy costs far more but travels with you and covers treatment outside India, which an Indian policy generally does not.
OnlineWho: You
3
Register at a major hospital near home
SGPGIMS in Raebareli Road, KGMU in the old city, RML Institute in Gomti Nagar and the private Medanta and Apollomedics are the main options. Do one routine consultation so you exist in their system, and check whether they are in your insurer's cashless network.
In personWho: YouWeek 1–2
4
Buy an air purifier before the season starts, not during it
From late October the Gangetic plain's winter inversion traps particulates and the index climbs. Purifiers and replacement filters sell out and prices rise once the smog is in the news. Buy in September, size it for the bedroom at minimum, and keep spare filters.
OnlineWho: YouBy October
5
Take mosquito precautions through and after the monsoon
Dengue and chikungunya rise from July through October across north India, and the aedes mosquito bites during the day, so evening repellent alone is not enough. Repellent, window screens and clearing standing water on balconies are all effective.
In personWho: You
6
Know the emergency drill before an emergency
112 is the national number and 108 the free state ambulance service. For a planned admission at a network hospital, ask the insurance desk for cashless pre-authorisation; off network you pay and claim back, and insurers typically require notification within twenty-four hours of admission.
In personWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Insurance policy document and TPA cashless card
Passport and visa, required at admission
Vaccination records and a list of regular medications by generic name
Proof of Lucknow address

Things most newcomers don’t know

Lucknow has better tertiary care than a city this size has any right to.

SGPGIMS is a national-level postgraduate institute and KGMU one of India's oldest medical universities, and between them they are the referral destination for Uttar Pradesh, much of Bihar and a slice of Nepal — a catchment of several hundred million people. The practical consequence for a resident is that cardiac, oncology, transplant and neurosurgical care is here rather than a flight away, which is not true of most Indian cities of comparable size.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

The best-weather months and the worst-air months are the same months.

November to January gives Lucknow its 10°C mornings, dry sunny afternoons and the entire festival and wedding season — and simultaneously its worst particulate readings, driven by the Indo-Gangetic plain's winter inversion and post-harvest stubble burning upwind. Newcomers plan their arrival for the pleasant weather and are blindsided by the air. Both facts are true at once and neither cancels the other.

Source: Central Pollution Control Board — air quality

Room-rent sub-limits quietly shrink Indian claims across the whole bill.

Many group policies cap the daily room rent they will meet. Take a room above the cap and the insurer proportionately reduces every other line in the bill — surgeon's fees, tests, consumables — not just the room. A policy you believed covered you can leave a large residual. This clause matters more than the headline sum insured.

Source: IRDAI — policyholder information

Foreign nationals are outside every Indian public health scheme.

PM-JAY, ESIC and CGHS are all closed to foreign nationals, so there is no residual public entitlement to fall back on. A gap between two employers is a genuine exposure rather than a paperwork inconvenience — bridge it with a personal policy before you resign, not after.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare