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New Delhi: At least 1.10 lakh hospital admissions worth Rs 202.96 crore have been authorised for senior citizens aged 70 years and above as on January 28, Union Minister of State for Health Prataprao Jadhav told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. More than 47 lakh eligible senior citizens have enrolled for Ayushman Vay Vandana cards till February 6, Jadhav said in a written reply.
On October 29, 2024, the Centre expanded Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) to provide free treatment benefits of up to Rs 5 lakh per year to 6 crore senior citizens belonging to 4.5 crore families, irrespective of their socio-economic status.
The enrolment of all eligible senior citizens is application based to ensure efficient delivery of benefits, Jadhav said, adding that different modes of application are available including mobile phone application (Ayushman App), and web portal (beneficiary.nha.gov.in).
The feature of self-registration is also available in these application. Beneficiaries can also visit to the nearby empanelled hospital or Common Service Centre for creation of their cards.
The AB-PMJAY has a comprehensive media and outreach strategy to spread awareness and empower beneficiaries for their rights and entitlements more prominently in rural and backward areas, Jadhav stated.
State Health Agencies have also engaged the wide network of frontline workers — ASHAs, AWWs and VLEs (Village Level Entrepreneurs) — who are pivotal in creating mass awareness at the grassroot level.
With regard to the health benefit services, National Health Authority (NHA) has defined the latest national master of the Health Benefit Package (HBP) which provides cashless healthcare services related to 1,961 procedures across 27 medical specialties including general medicine, general surgery, orthopedics, cardiology, oncology etc. which can be availed by different age groups.
Among these, treatment services like Hemodialysis /Peritoneal Dialysis, Acute Ischemic Stroke, Accelerated hypertension, Total Hip Replacement, Total Knee Replacement among others are available to eligible senior citizens.
Further, states have been provided flexibility to further customise the health benefit packages to local context, Jadhav said.
To encourage the participation of public, private and corporate healthcare providers, empanelled hospitals are given additional incentive of 10 per cent and 15 per cent over and above the package rate is provided to the hospitals with entry level NABH accreditation and full NABH accreditation, respectively.
Hospitals, which are imparting post-graduate education, are also incentivized at the rate of 10 per cent over and above the base rate of HBP packaged master rates, Jadhav stated.>
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