The Five Documents Every Indian Adult Should Have Saved Right Now

4 September 2026 · 3 min read

Ignore the aspirational 'complete digital health record with 10 years of data' for a moment. The specific minimum every adult in India should have accessible today — on their phone or in a secure folder — is five documents. Not a hundred. Five. These five are what will be needed in the specific situations that come up several times in an adult's life. Everything else is optional; these are not.

The five

  • 1. A current medicine list. Every medicine you take, with dose and frequency. Updated when it changes.
  • 2. An allergy list. Every drug or substance you are allergic to, with severity. Blank if no allergies — but do not skip the item.
  • 3. Your last discharge summary from any hospitalisation, or a note that you have never been hospitalised.
  • 4. Your health insurance card and policy number, with the 24-hour helpline.
  • 5. Your emergency contact — one person, name and phone, with the relationship.

On one page, printed AND on your phone. Total effort to create: 15 minutes. Total value if any of them are needed: substantial.

Why exactly these five

  • Document: Current medicines · Situation where it matters: Any doctor visit; ER admission; travel; new prescription cross-check
  • Document: Allergies · Situation where it matters: Any prescription decision; ER; anaesthesia
  • Document: Last discharge summary · Situation where it matters: New specialist visit; follow-up care; insurance claim
  • Document: Insurance card and helpline · Situation where it matters: Hospital admission; cashless activation
  • Document: Emergency contact · Situation where it matters: When you cannot answer for yourself

None of the five is exotic. All of them come up in real situations that most adults face several times in their lives. Not having them costs time, money, and occasionally safety.

The physical format

For the paper version:

  • One printed sheet of A4 or letter size.
  • Laminated if you want to keep it in a wallet.
  • Updated every 6 months.
  • Copy in the wallet; copy at home; copy known to your emergency contact.

The digital format

  • Same information on the phone lock screen (iPhone Medical ID; Android Emergency Info).
  • Same information in the health record app if you use one.
  • Same information as a PDF in your email drafts folder for easy access.

For an elderly parent

Do the same for the parent. Print it. Put it on the fridge. Give a copy to any home carer. The five-item document for an elderly parent is even more important because the parent may not always be able to speak for themselves at an emergency.

The starter kit for the health record app

If this five-item exercise leads to more, the natural next steps:

  • Add all chronic condition diagnoses with dates.
  • Add a summary of past hospitalisations.
  • Add care team — every doctor currently seen.
  • Add family history.
  • Add vaccinations.

But the five come first. They are the emergency-usable, insurance-relevant, day-one core. Everything else builds on them.

The specific test

Ask yourself: if you had to give a paramedic your current medicines right now, could you? If not, the five-item document is the specific fix. If yes, the discipline that made it possible is the same discipline that grows into a complete record over time. Start where you are; start small; but start.

References

Free for 90 days, no card needed. After that, keeping the record costs ₹349 for the year.

General information, not medical advice. Always talk to a qualified doctor about your own care. Where this and your doctor disagree, your doctor is right.

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