Meghalaya Health Insurance Scheme 3rd Phase to Converge with Ayushman Bharat

Staff Correspondent

Shillong: The Meghalaya Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS-third phase) will converge with the Centrally sponsored Ayushman Bharat-the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna and is likely to be implemented by the third week of December this year. This was announced the Minister in charge of Health and Family welfare Alexender L Hek on Tuesday.

The MHIS-3 that has catered to around 4.4 lakh households throughout the state by providing health insurance cover of Rs 2,80,000 per family, has come to a grinding halt last month, leaving a number of beneficiaries admitted to multiple private hospitals post-September 25, 2018 in a quandary.

Although the total claims under the state scheme has reached Rs 94 crore, the Minister did not deny the fact that the technical aspect related to revision of the phase -4 of the scheme has created certain complexities. “We wanted to converge the two schemes for the overall welfare of the people and the process of completing the formalities will be completed with the shortlisted companies by this week” he added with confidence that the government will try its level best to implement the integrated scheme before Christmas.

The Minister said that the convergence of the state scheme along with the central scheme will enable each family to have an insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh. Announcing that the packages to the family will also increase, Hek said that the cap on the members of the family has also been removed and all the beneficiaries can use the scheme in empanelled hospitals.