Hospitals now taking in patients under Bhamashah scheme after govt assurance

Jaipur: Hospitals have started admitting patients under Bhamashah Swasthya Bima Yojna (BSBY) from Monday after state government gave them assurance that they will surely get payments for treatment for BSBY beneficiaries.

The situation returned to normal in hospitals after two days of chaos and confusion prevailing over payments for the treatment of admitted BSBY beneficiaries in the hospital. Long queues were seen at the outpatient departments of hospitals empanelled to provide services under BSBY.

“We have started admitting patients under BSBY. We have received e-mail from the government with commitment that we will get payments for proving cashless treatment to BSBY beneficiaries,” said a senior administrative officer of a private hospital.

The hospitals had stopped admitting BSBY patients after they received an e-mail from New India Assurance Company (NIAC) on Friday midnight, informing them that no fresh claims would be admissible or payable under the BSBY.

BSBY is a scheme to provide cashless facility to the patients of identified families covered under National Food Security Act (NFSA) and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY). The government pay fixed premium per family per year on floater basis to the insurance company for providing cashless treatment for beneficiary only for OPD procedures

There are 1,715 disease packages covered under the scheme which includes 1,148 packages for secondary illness, 500 for tertiary illnesses. Under the scheme, 67 disease packages are reserved for government institutions. It provides coverage of Rs 30,000 for general illnesses and Rs 3 lakh for serious ailments.

The health department had issued new guidelines for phase-II of BSBY scheme, which will continue till 2019.

The state government had recently rejected the Centre’s proposal of implementing Ayushman Bharat as Rajasthan already had the BSBY scheme.