In good news for Employees’ State Insurance Corporation or ESIC beneficiaries, they can now avail of health services directly in any nearby private hospital in case of emergency. Earlier, the insured persons and beneficiaries (family members) were required to go to an ESIC dispensary or hospital to obtain the referral for hospitalization in empanelled as well as non-empanelled private hospitals.
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“The pre-condition of getting a referral for hospitalisation from the ESIC dispensary or hospital has been done away in emergency cases in the board meeting held on Monday,” S P Tiwari, general secretary, Trade Union Coordination Committee (TUCC), told.
Oxford and AstraZeneca first to publish final-stage vaccine trial results
Tiwari, who is also on the board of ESIC, said the decision was taken as emergencies like a heart attack or cardiac arrest require immediate hospitalisation.
Here’s all you need to know
1) ESIC subscribers would be able to visit empanelled as well as non-empanelled private hospitals for emergency treatment.
2) The only difference is that treatment will be cash-less in the empanelled private hospitals. There would be reimbursement as per Central Government Health Services (CGHS) rates in non-empanelled private hospitals.
3) Subscribers are allowed to get health services in non-empanelled private hospitals in case there is no ESIC or empanelled private hospital within 10 km range.
4) Tiwari added it was also decided that ESIC would run its upcoming hospitals itself in order to maintain the quality of health services for its subscribers and beneficiaries and it would not hand over the facilities to states to run them.
5) ESIC has around 26 under-construction hospitals and 16 at the conceptual stage.
6) The states run 110 hospitals for which the ESIC pays service charges. They would continue services as per the existing arrangement.
7) Tiwari further said the board on Monday also approved a proposal to extend till June 30, 2021, the timeline for availing unemployment benefit under the Atal Bimit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana run by ESIC. The existing deadline was December 31, 2020.
Mean-while, India recorded 32,080 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of active coronavirus cases in the country to 3,78,909, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday. With 36.635 new recoveries, the number of overall recovered COVID-19 patients stands at 92,15,581, pushing the recovery rate to 94.66 per cent.
The overall COVID-19 cases reached 97,35,850, including 3,78,909 active cases and 92,15,581 recoveries. With 402 new deaths, the casualties mounted to 1,41,360
Oxford University and AstraZeneca on Tuesday became the first Covid-19 vaccine makers to publish final-stage clinical trial data in a scientific journal, clearing a key hurdle in the global race to produce safe and effective drugs for the coronavirus.
