Govt all set to roll out ‘Ayushman Bharat’ health insurance scheme
Scheme to be set in motion from Dec 1 in JK
Srinagar: While the ‘Ayushman Bharat’ health insurance scheme has been launched in rest of the states last month, the Jammu and Kashmir government is still inching towards setting all the requirements in place in order to roll out the ambitious health insurance scheme on December 1.
The government has, so far, completed the empanelment of various Govt Hospitals in the State which will be providing the benefits under the scheme, while the process for empanelling the private hospitals in still on.
“Almost 117 government hospitals have been empanelled across the state, which includes health institutions at the tertiary level, Medical Colleges in state and SKIMS,” Mission Director, National Health Mission, Bhupinder Kumar told Kashmir Vision.
Kumar said that while the process has culminated in regard to the government hospitals, the department is eyeing to rope in the private institutions as well.
“While the process is still on, many private hospitals have filed applications to be empanelled, we are looking at all such cases and once we are done with the rest of formalities, they will also be roped in,” he said.
The Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, has, so far, called two meetings of the top officials to review the arrangements for the rollout of the scheme and has also directed them to start a sustained awareness campaign about the scheme to inform the prospective beneficiary about the programme, its benefits, the eligibility criteria and the process to avail the benefits.
“From November 1st we are starting to begin with the awareness programme to aware the masses about the benefits and how to avail the same,” Kumar said.
With the scheme being one month old in other states, J&K is all set to roll-out the flagship health insurance scheme on the much closer deadline of December 1st, 2018.
When asked why there was a delay in the roll-out of the scheme, when it was already in place in rest of the states, Kumar declined to comment, saying that he was not in a position to comment on that.
In order to reduce the out-of-pocket expenditure, the scheme is aimed at providing health protection cover to poor and vulnerable families.
The scheme, entirely cashless and paperless, is set to provide access to services for the beneficiary at the point of service in any empanelled hospitals across the country.
Further, the scheme is set to cover estimated 613648 families in J&K, with insurance coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family per annum with no cap on the family size.
“Families under the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) database will be entitled to claim the benefits under the scheme with estimated 613648 families to be covered in J&K,” Kumar said.
With the government finalizing, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company for implementing the scheme in the state, the scheme covers approximately “1350 medical packages covering surgery, medical and daycare treatments including medicines and diagnostics.”
On the directions of the Chief Secretary, the process of validating existing beneficiary list is on, “additional information like contact numbers, ration card details, Aadhar details are being collected through ANMs and ASHAS,” he said.
Irfan Tramboo
