Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare has launched the revamped Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) and the Umbrella schemes of Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi (RAN) and Health Minister’s Discretionary Grant (HMDG) on National Health Authority (NHA)’s IT platform.

“Just like the Technological interventions in opening bank accounts, Public Financial Management System (PFMS), subsidies through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Ayushman Bharat scheme for paperless treatment of patients, today’s initiative of convergence of CGHS, RAN and HMDG with NHA platform is also designed to with the vision of making the healthcare services available transparently and swiftly to the needy citizens”, he said.

The Union Health Minister remarked that the CGHS, a comprehensive Health Scheme for Serving Employees, Pensioners, Members of Parliament, ex-MPs, etc., and their dependent family members, during last 7 years has expanded to 72 Cities with more than 38 lakh beneficiaries are covered under the scheme. 

Dr. Harsh Vardhan noted that e-referral module developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has enabled CGHS dispensaries and wellness centres to issue online referral to empanelled hospitals. The hospital’s processing of application, submission of claims, CGHS team’s sanctioning, release of payment would be done online on the platform henceforth.

He also informed that under RAN, financial assistance up to Rs 15 lakhs is provided to poor patients suffering from major life-threatening diseases/cancer/rare diseases, for medical treatment at Government hospitals. The eligibility criteria to avail services under RAN had been based on State/UT-wise BPL threshold.