Govt identifying beneficiaries as Modicare set for Sept 5 rollout

Union health minister JP Nadda on Monday said a unique quick response (QR) code will be sent to selected families on September 5 that will allow them to avail an annual cashless health insurance cover under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (AB-PMJAY).

“The government is in the process of identifying beneficiaries at the moment and we have covered 85% of the rural population and 60% of the urban population. It is an ongoing process so we will continue till we have all beneficiaries covered,” said Nadda who also launched the logo of the scheme.

Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (AB-PMJAY), popularly known as Modicare, provides cashless health insurance cover of ~5 lakh per family, per year, for hospitalisation to almost 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families.

Under the scheme which will be launched on September 25, the beneficiaries will start getting insurance cover, three days prior to hospitalisation and for 15 days after discharge .

Each empanelled hospital will have a nodal person, Pradhan Mantri Arogya Mitra, who is trained to facilitate the process.

The scheme covers 1354 packages, from more than 20 specialities. Nadda also announced anti-fraud guidelines to prevent, detect and deter fraud at any level.

“We have ensured a strict data protection mechanism that has 94 control tools at various levels that are based on international best practices and tweaked according to India-specific regulations.The data and information is absolutely secure,” he said.

Twenty-nine states have signed up for the scheme, and five states—Kerala, Delhi, Punjab, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu— are likely to sign up within a week.