Tamil Nadu increases health insurance cover to 5 lakh

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu's enhanced health insurance cover of 5 lakh for 1.58 crore families will come into effect from December 1 as a cashless scheme.

In September, the state announced that beneficiaries of the Chief Minister’s Health Insurance Scheme will receive an additional 3 lakh taking the total cover to 5 lakh a year, after the scheme was dovetailed with the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi under the Ayushman Bharat programme. On Friday, chief minister Edappadi K Palanswami announced the scheme would come into effect on Saturday.

After the state had signed the MoU with central officials for linking the insurance schemes, another 10 lakh families who weren’t in the state scheme will be added to the combined insurance plan. The state now covers 1,027 medical procedures for 1.57crore families, most of who earn less than 72,000 per annum, or receive social security benefits such as old age or widow pensions or disability pension.

The Centre’s scheme is for marginalised people such as rag-pickers and rickshaw-pullers. The health department is now working on the data base provided by the Centre to enrol people who are missing from the state list. “We expect to add another 10 lakh people,” said TN health systems project director P Uma Maheshwari.

The beneficiaries can get treatment at government hospital or at more than 700 empanelled private hospitals, nearly 40% of them with NABH accreditation. The state will continue to cover only 1,027 procedures against the Centre’s 1,300 medical procedures in the private sector. "So far, 26.96 lakh persons have benefitted by availing insurance worth 5,133.33 crore from the scheme," Palaniswami said.