Labour ministry to provide cashless secondary and tertiary medical care services under AB-PMJAY

Labour ministry has decided to provide cashless secondary and tertiary medical care services under Ayushman Bharat package rates to entitled Employees' State Insurance beneficiaries in new 102 designated districts through empanelled hospitals in states where the scheme has been adopted by the state governments.

A decision to this effect was taken at the ESI Corporation's 178th meeting held on Friday under the chairmanship of labour minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar.

"Further, to avoid any hassle in smooth implementation of this initiative, ESI beneficiaries will be dealt through

PMJAY logistics/IT facilities for registration, billing etc. as is done for PMJAY beneficiaries, up to a maximum limit of Rs. 5 lakhs worth of medical expenditure, beyond which individual case will be channelled to ESIC for seeking approval for further expenditure on ESI beneficiary," labour ministry said in a statement.

As per the statement, PMJAY beneficiaries may get in-house medical treatment services as per Ayushman Bharat approved packages from underutilized ESI Hospitals while National Health Agency (NHA) will make payment to ESIC directly.

"Further, various state government running ESIS medical scheme, shall also be requested to enrol ESIS hospitals under Ayushman Bharat Scheme for providing medical services to PMJAY Beneficiaries, similar to ESIC hospitals," it added.

ESIC has decided to set-up 100 bedded hospital at Srinagar and 30 bedded hospital at Leh.