Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : The National Health Authority (NHA), the apex body for implementing Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) has revised the Health Benefit Package (HBP) Master under the scheme. In the revised version of Health Benefit Package (HBP 2.2), rates of some health packages have been increased by 20 percent to 400 per cent under PM-JAY. Around, 400 procedure rates have been revised and one new additional medical management package related to black fungus has also been added. The HBP 2.2 is expected to be rolled out from November, 2021.
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said, “I am glad that the revised version of Health Benefit Packages (HBP 2.2) will strengthen the empanelled hospitals to provide better healthcare services to the beneficiaries under Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY. The revised packages for oncology will enhance cancer care for the beneficiaries in the country. Addition of new packages related to black fungus will be a huge relief to the beneficiaries. I am sure that the rationalised HBP will further improve the uptake of scheme in private hospitals leading to reduced Out-of-Pocket Expenditure for the beneficiaries.”
Dr R S Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority (NHA), assured that NHA constantly works on the feedback received from stakeholders for rationalisation of health benefit package master. Since the inception of the AB PM-JAY scheme, new packages have been added to cover more disease conditions and regular rates of the packages are being revised to provide better healthcare services. These changes were necessitated to ensure effective implementation of the scheme and will be made in the Transaction Management System (TMS) to ensure that there are no challenges in portability. State Health Agencies (SHAs) currently implementing any of the previous versions of HBP can now accept and implement the latest version of HBP 2.2, according to a PIB release.
NHA has undertaken rate revision in the following categories:
- Radiation oncology procedures,
- Medical Management procedures like procedure for dengue, acute febrile illness etc.,
- Surgical package treatment for black fungus,
- Other procedures like Right/left heart catheteriszation, PDA closure, Arthrodesis, Cholecystectomy, appendicectomy etc.
Under medical management procedures, rates for ICU with ventilator has been revised by 100 percent, rates for ICU without ventilator by 136 percent, rates for HDU has been revised by 22 percent while prices for routine ward has been revised by 17 percent.
Currently, Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY has 1,669 treatment procedures of which 1,080 are surgical, 588 medical, and one unspecified package.
In 2018, Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY was launched with the HBP 1.0 with a total of 1,393 packages. The scheme aims to provide free and cashless healthcare services up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year to over 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families (over 53 crore beneficiaries) as per Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC)-2011 database.
Since the inception of the scheme, more than 2.2 crore eligible AB-PMJAY beneficiary have been provided with health coverage for secondary, tertiary, and day care procedures for treatment of diseases and medical conditions through a vast network of 24,000 Empanelled Health Care Providers (EHCP).