Chief Minister’s health insurancescheme launched in Nagaland

Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana Chief Minister’s Health Insurance Scheme (AB PM-JAY CMHIS), which seeks to provide free health insurance cover of Rs.5 lakh per family per year, was launched by state chief minister Neiphiu Rio here Thursday.
The chief minister launched the scheme at CM’s State Banquet Hall, CMRC, Kohima, as special guest and National Health Authority (NHA) CEO Dr. RS Sharma, who attended the programme virtually as guest of honour.
Speaking at the launch, Rio said that the scheme covering the entire population of the State would expand the coverage of insurance benefits, over and above those being covered under Prime Minister’s Ayushman Bharat scheme.
Rio described CMHIS as state-specific welfare scheme that would enable people of the state to get insurance of better access to health services under the scheme. He said that the scheme would provide an assured coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh for almost every illness requiring hospitalization. The scheme will be available throughout a wide network of nearly 28000 Ayushman Bharat empanelled hospitals across the country, he said.
Rio also said government servants and pensioners will get coverage of up to Rs. 20 lakh per family and also have access to nearly 1500 Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) empanelled hospitals.
He expressed the hope that the scheme will prevent many families driven to poverty or suffer extreme hardship after spending money on medical treatment.
He said that it was also an opportunity for the private hospitals in the state to treat patients and get assured payments.
“This is the first time that they are getting an opportunity to get empanelled and treat patients not only from the general population but also from among government servants who are as of now going for treatment outside the state,” Rio said.
He also said that all government hospitals in the state will also get empanelment to provide in-patient treatment under the scheme and the revenue earned from the scheme can be used by the hospitals for improving the delivery of health services in their respective facilities. He said the government was pursuing various financing resources including National Health Mission, World Bank , JICA etc to improve the state’s hospital facilities.
Rio appealed to all the beneficiaries to get enrolled through online enrolment portal including also for all hospitals to immediately enrolled so they could also be able to provide services immediately.
Delivering keynote address, state chief secretary, J Alam said that the Oriental Insurance Company Limited would be the insurance partner. He said the government has already signed the agreement with the company.
Alam expressed hope that the state would be able to provide equitable, affordable and quality healthcare services to the people of the State. Further, he stated that CMHIS can only be a success if all the stakeholders, including the district administration, hospitals both public and private in the State, insurance partner and the people implementing the scheme work hand in hand to bring the benefit to all the citizens in the State.
NHA CEO Dr. R. S. Sharma, in his live address from Delhi, stated that with the launch of CMHIS, Nagaland would become the second state in North-east to have universal health coverage.
State health minister, S Pangnyu Phom, informed that there were two schemes being implemented in the State covering specific population segments-AB PM-JAY scheme for the pre-identified deprived categories and Medical Reimbursement Scheme (MR Scheme) for the government employees and their dependent family members.
Pangnyu also said that there was a substantial section of the society, which neither belonged to government employee family nor eligible for AB PM-JAY. He said the state government was therefore responsive to those concerns of the people and have come up with the scheme, which was aimed to reduce their financial burden.
He expressed hope that CMHIS would be an important stepping stone in achieving positive health and wellbeing and a driver of economic prosperity for the State.
For CMHIS (GEN) beneficiary families, sum insured is Rs. 5 lakh per family per annum on a family floater basis, similar to AB PM-JAY.
For CMHIS (EP) beneficiary families, the sum insured is Rs. 20 lakh per family per annum on a family floater basis.
Further, for government employees, any additional expenses beyond the sum insured would be reimbursed on a case-to-case basis by the State Government on recommendation of the State Medical Board.
CMHIS (GEN) beneficiaries will be entitled to more than 1950 medical and surgical packages across 27 major clinical specialties as well as entitlement to General Ward, similar to AB PM-JAY. CMHIS (EP) beneficiaries will be entitled similar to that available for Central Government employees under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) as well as differential room entitlement as per their employee grade.
Earlier at the programme, state Chaplin Yamyap konyak gave invocation.
On the occasion, the chief minister also released the CMHIS Policy Document, and also launched the CMHIS Beneficiary Registration Portal.
He also handed over the Ayushman – CMHIS Card to the beneficiaries, namely, Yinshom SS Konyak from the General Population Category, Neikholhoulie Belho from the Pensioners Category, and Solo Kent from the Government Employees Category. Empanelment Certificates were also handed over to Oking Hospital Kohima, CIHSR Dimapur, Olive Hospital Dimapur, District Hospital Mon and District Hospital, Longleng.
Senior officials from various departments, district level officials from the administration and the H&FW department, representatives from Nagaland Pensioners Association, CANSSEA, NCSA, NSSA and other associations; civil societies, Church and faith-based organizations and community leaders as well as ex-parliamentarians and ex-legislators attended the launching programme.