ESIC medical council approves convergence of ESI scheme with AB-PMJAY

Employees' State Insurance Corporation's (ESIC) Medical Benefit Council on Friday approved convergence of ESI scheme with Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY to enhance healthcare accessibility to beneficiaries.

The decision to converge the two schemes was taken at 86th Meeting of Medical Benefit Council held at ESIC headquarters here, a labour ministry statement said. Ashok Kumar Singh, Director General (DG), ESIC chaired the meeting.

Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY is the largest health assurance scheme in the world which aims at providing a health cover of Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization to over 12 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 55 crore beneficiaries) that form the bottom 40 per cent of the Indian population.

The council also approved the implementation of the Common Support Mission (CSM) for states. The CSM aims to improve and strengthen ESI's medical service delivery system in sates with focus on the IP (insured persons) centric approach.

Besides, the council approved the launch of annual preventive health check-ups & awareness camps for the beneficiaries to focus on early diagnosis of lifestyle disorders; identification of pre-cancerous lesions, and detection of nutritional deficiencies among insured persons / women / transgenders.

The meeting was attended by T L Yaden, Financial Commissioner; Deepika Govil, Medical Commissioner, ESIC and other senior officers of ESIC.

Members of state governments and the central government were also present during the meeting.