Local Goa News

Friday, May 20, 2016

Health insurance scheme to cover 3 lakh families

PANAJI: The state cabinet on Friday cleared the Din Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana, which will provide health insurance cover to around 3 lakh Goan families residing in the state for a minimum of five years – excluding 50,000 families, whose members are government employees – with the facility of 447 medical procedures at the major government hospitals in Goa as well as the empanelled hospitals/ nursing homes, in and outside the state.
Addressing a press conference at the Secretariat, along with the Health Minister, Francis D’Souza and Chief Secretary, R K Srivastava,
Chief Minister, Laxmikant Parsekar said the ambitious scheme, which will be a crowning glory in the state health network, would be launched on May 30 – the Goa Statehood Day.
“The scheme, however, would come into force from August 15, 2016 after readying the necessary health infrastructure,” he added.
He said the health insurance scheme would function through the United India Insurance Company, which would be paid a premium of Rs 3,206 per beneficiary family by the government.
“The scheme will be implemented in two categories; for a family of up to three persons, with the total annual insurance cover of Rs 2.5 lakh, and for a family of four or more persons with the total annual insurance cover of Rs 4 lakh,” he added, pointing out that the government employees would not be part of this scheme as they already enjoy the facility of reimbursing the amount spent on medical treatment for the family members; this amount being much more than the insurance cover provided under the Din Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana.
“The company is free to empanel the required private hospitals/ nursing homes under the scheme,” Parsekar maintained, observing that the Goa Medical College Hospital, the two government district hospitals and the government sub-district hospitals would compulsorily be part of the panel.
“Furthermore, out of the 447 medical procedures covered under the insurance scheme, 276 procedures have been reserved for only government hospitals,” he mentioned, noting that chronic lifestyle diseases like diabetes and hypertension; disorders like epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy; and mental health problems, Ayurveda hospitalisation, etc would also be covered under the same.
It was also informed that the Goa Electronics Ltd has been entrusted with the task of registration and renewal pertaining to the state insurance scheme. The GEL will also collect the related demographic data with biometric information, and store the same centrally.
The Chief Minister stated that the GEL would soon set up registration enrolment centres at the taluka level, and charge a one-time registration fee of Rs 200 for first category, while Rs 300 for the second one, from the families desiring to avail the scheme. “However, the non-creamy OBC families as well as the ST and SC families will have to pay only 50 per cent of these fees,” he noted.
Stating that the scheme has a provision of including newborns in the list of members of the beneficiary family, Parsekar said the annual financial implication of the scheme is Rs 100 crore, for which provision has already been made.
“We expect that annually 50 per cent of the treatment money under the scheme would go back to the government hospitals in the state, and hence the effective annual financial implication would be only Rs 50 crore,” he maintained.
Parsekar also came out with the information that the MLAs and ministers of the governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka have requested the Goa government to include population from the respective states – mainly those residing near the Goan border areas – under the Din Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana.
“The two governments have even assured their readiness to pay the insurance premium for their people, however we have told them to wait till things related to the implementation of the scheme are put in order,” he concluded.
Replying to a question, Parsekar said that the Swarnajayanti Aarogya Bima Yojana, the state insurance scheme implemented by the earlier government had an insurance premium of Rs 537 paid to the insurance company per beneficiary, for an insurance cover of Rs 60,000.
He also informed that the agreement with the United India Insurance Company is for five years.

NT NETWORK Goa News

No comments:

Post a Comment