What is the National Health Protection Scheme?
The National Health Protection scheme is the Ayushman Bharat scheme in India. Under this scheme, the government ensures that it will cover over 10 crores of poor and vulnerable families by providing up to ₹5 lakh for each family per year, with secondary and tertiary hospitalization. The Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection scheme will include the already implemented schemes sponsored by the Centra government, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), and the Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme (SCHIS). This scheme has an easy and simple registration process and the beneficiaries can easily avail of cashless benefits from any private/government hospital in the nation.
The expenditure will be shared between Central and state governments in a specified ratio which is decided by the ministry of finance. The total expenditure will depend on the states or UTs where the Ayushman Bharat-National health protection scheme is implemented and it also depends on what is the actual market-determined premium paid in those states and UTs. Ayushman Bharat-National health protection scheme aims to provide healthcare facilities to 10.74 crore people living in poverty and people in rural areas with low healthcare facilities.
Features of the Ayushman Bharat scheme
Ayushman Bharat-National health protection scheme aims to cover ₹5 lakh per family per year.
All the benefits of Ayushman Bharat are portable throughout the country and beneficiaries registered under the scheme can avail of cashless benefits from any private/Government hospital across the nation.
The scheme will be an entitlement-based scheme in which entitlement is decided based on deprivation criteria in the SECC database.
The beneficiaries registered under the scheme can avail their rightful benefits from any private or government hospital.
To co-operate federalism and increase flexibility to states, is the core principle of the Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection scheme.
Ayushman Bharat National Health Protection Mission Council (AB-NHPMC) is set up at the apex level to give policy directions and foster coordination between center and state, which is chaired by the Union Health and Family Welfare Minister.
To implement this scheme in states, the states need to have State Health Agency (SHA).
For the funding to reach SHA from the center through the Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection scheme, the escrow account can be used directly.
For paperless and cashless transactions, a scalable and modular IT platform will be established in partnership with NITI Aayog.
Impacts of Ayushman Bharat
Nearly 40% of the population which comes under the poor and vulnerable part of the society is benefited from the implementation of the national health protection scheme.
Covers almost all secondary and tertiary hospitalization.
Covers up to ₹5 lakh to provide medical facilities to each family per year.
Leads to increase quality health and medication.
Meets the need of the backward part of the society, which is untouched by proper healthcare facilities due to lack of finance.
Lead to timely treatment and improvement of people which will give positive outcomes in terms of health.
Improvement in Productivity and efficiency will lead to creating job opportunities, letting people live a better and improved life.
FAQs related to the health protection scheme
1. What is the national health protection scheme?
Ans. The national health protection scheme is funded by Government for the public to ensure medical and health facilities.
2. What is the Ayushman Bharat health protection scheme?
Ans. The health protection scheme is also known as the Ayushman Bharat health protection scheme. It aims to provide healthcare facilities and to cover up to 5 lakhs per family per year for hospitalization.
3. What are the benefits of a health insurance scheme?
Ans. This health protection scheme provides full coverage of medical facilities and gives cash benefits to those registered under the scheme.
