The State Administrative Council (SAC) which met at Srinagar on July 11 under the chairmanship of the Governor N N Vohra approved roll-out of Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Swasthya Suraksha Mission (PMRSSM) in the Jammu and Kashmir, where 613648 families comprising 36 lakh people to be covered.

The flagship scheme is aimed at providing assured health coverage of up to Rs 5.0 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization for 1350 identified diseases through a cashless procedure with the help of a smart health card with unique ID, which would be issued to the beneficiaries. The healthcare services will be delivered through a network public and private healthcare providers. In the State of J&K 6,13,648 families comprising 36 lakh beneficiaries, which is about 29% population of the total population, would be covered under the Scheme.

In order to implement the Scheme effectively, a State Health Agency has been constituted with a Governing Council under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretary. Similarly, an Executive Committee has been constituted for proper implementation of the Mission under the chairmanship of a Chief Executive Officer, who would be assisted by various health experts from the field of health insurance.

All Government Hospitals would be automatically empanelled and private hospitals would have to get empanelled to act as healthcare providers. Every Private and Public Hospital will have “Ayushman Mitra” who will act as a facilitator for admission and processing the claims of beneficiaries of the Mission.

The salient features of PMRSSM include, cashless and paperless scheme which provides access to services in any public and private empanelled hospitals across India; there will be no cap on Family Size so as to ensure all members of designated families, specifically girl child and senior citizens, get coverage; the main feature of the scheme is its portability which means beneficiary can avail treatment in any empanelled chain of hospitals, both public and private, in the country; for all beneficiaries, a health card with a unique ID will be provided.

The main aim of the Mission is to cut down out of pocket expenditure of the population in SECC categories, which eventually will raise the Standard of Living of their families by way of savings on medical expenditure and leaving it for expenditure on health, nutrition and education.