Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme

Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme

Introduction -
Government of Himachal Pradesh has decided to provide assistance to the senior citizen of that state for accessing curative health services. For this purpose, the state has launched a new scheme named as Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme. The scheme was launched by the Chief Minister Vibhadra Singh. Under this scheme, the senior citizens of Himachal Pradesh can get the access of geriatric health care through the additional insurance cover. 

Objectives -

• To provide financial assistance to the senior citizens for their health care as a form of insurance. 
• To provide Rs. 30,000 top-up coverage to the “Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna” (RSBY) card holders.

Features of the Scheme -

• This scheme would provide coverage up to Rs. 30,000 to every senior citizen by the Himachal Pradesh Government. They would also get additional basic coverage of Rs. 30,000 in the Trust mode. 
• The senior citizens, who are enrolled to the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna or willing to be, must get these additional benefits.
  
• If a family consists of more than one senior citizen, the additional coverage would be the multiples of Rs. 30,000 for each senior citizen on floater basis. In that case, Rs. 60,000 would be provided to both of them.
  
• If the senior citizens of a family are not rolled in the scheme, the benefit of the Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme cannot be availed.
  
• Under this scheme, the package would be in addition to the Rs. 30,000 annual package for each family under RSBY.  
• Various packages would be offered under the Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme.  
• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has already prepared a list of surgical packages of cost more than Rs. 30,000. 
• There would be two additional coverage of Rs. 1.75 Lakh for critical care and Rs. 2.25 Lakh for cancer from the top-up of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna. 
• The schemes would be financed through the insurance and the trust models would be under the Insurance model. 
• The estimated additional premium must be of Rs. 500 per family for implementing the Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme.  
• The ratio of sharing between Central and State Government in the insurance premium would be 90:10 under the trust model. 
• All these funds would be transferred to the corpus-pooled bank account. The unspent money would be refunded at the end of the financial year. 
• The smart card issued by the RSBY can be used for the identification and verification purpose under the Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme of Himachal Pradesh. 
• All the hospitals enrolled under the RSBY would automatically be impaneled to provide benefits under the scheme and would install essential software and hardware as per as the guidelines given by the Central Government. 
• The claims from the hospital would go to the trust directly and the trust would settle this on the basis of the different packages. 
• The expenses for the IEC and various administrative works would be paid by the State Government from the administrative funds of RSBY. 
• The beneficiaries of this scheme can get the cashless treatment in the impaneled hospitals of RSBY according to the fixed guidelines and norms.
  

Conclusion-
According to the Government of Himachal Pradesh, This scheme must provide easy access to the various geriatric healthcare services to the senior citizen.