SHILLONG: In what can be termed as an encouraging trend, claims worth more than Rupees one crore have been made in just one month after the phase III of the Megha Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS) was rolled out.
Speaking at the enrollment drive conducted here at Pynthorumkhrah on Tuesday, MHIS CEO, HM Shangpliang informed that so far 3522 people in the state had already benefitted from the phase III of the scheme.
The policy period of the MHIS III began from 1st July 2017 and will last till July 31. Total 2.52 lakh households in the state have been enrolled under the scheme so far while the target is to enroll 8.86 lakh households in the state.
According to Shangpliang, the enrollment for the MHIS would continue till September. He admitted that last year there were complaints of MHIS being misused by people and therefore, the department was stressing on the people to take back their smart card immediately after enrollment and not to leave it to the wisdom of MLAs and Rangbah Shnongs to hand over the card to them later.
Local MLA and the former Health and Family Welfare Minister, AL Hek who was also present on the occasion informed that the government of Meghalaya spent Rs 52 crores during the phase II of the scheme which ended last year.
He said that people should keep their smart cards in their safe custody as there were several complaints that people used to go to hospitals without the card and seek discounts in medical treatment.
“People should take the card and produce it before the MHIS counter when they get admitted in Hospitals,” he said.
He further clarified that the MHIS facility was available only for those people who are admitted in Hospital for treatment.
The insurance cover under the phase III of the MHIS has been increased from Rs 2 lakhs to Rs 2.8 lakhs and the MHIS Scheme this year also has an additional senior citizen cover of Rs 30000.
Earlier, the Meghalaya government had signed an MoU with New India Assurance Company to roll out its enhance phase-III of MHIS-III for nearly 3 million people.
The MHIS-III has been designed to fully integrate with the existing public health system in the state and will also significantly expand the number and quality of specialty and super specialty hospitals empaneled.