Why in news?

The State government announced monetary aid for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes patients who are suffering from rare diseases that require expensive surgeries.

Why this move?

• While several diseases are currently being covered under Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka (AB-ArK) health insurance scheme, certain rare diseases that require expensive surgeries are not under the scheme hitting patients hard.
• There is no facility to provide treatment in government hospitals, monetary aid will be provided by the State through Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST) using unspent SCSP/TSP fund allocation.

Highlights:

• “Currently, a total of ₹23.18 crore of unspent allocations exist and this will be used to fund this new scheme.
• The government will provide ₹10,000 for PET Scan, ₹7 lakh and ₹21 lakh for Autologous and Allogeneic bone marrow transplant, respectively, and ₹1.5 lakh for robotic surgeries.

About AROGYA KARNATAKA Scheme

• The objective of Arogya Karnataka schemeis to extend ‘Universal Health Coverage’ to all residents in Karnataka State. Under Arogya Karnataka scheme, primary health care, specified secondary and tertiary health care benefits will be provided.
• Similarly, in order to provide financial protection to poor and vulnerable families against catastrophic health expenditure and to reduce out of pocket expenditure for accessing health services due to hospitalization, Government of India has rolled out the Ayushman Bharat schemeto provide holistic care to all citizens including preventive health promotion as well as primary, secondary and tertiary care.
• Since both the schemes have similar coverage, both the schemes were integrated to achieve operational efficiency. The integrated scheme is called Ayushman Bharat- Arogya Karnataka scheme.

The following existing schemes shall be converged in the Ayushman Bharat- Arogya Karnataka scheme.

• Yeshaswini Scheme;
• Vajpayee Arogyashree Scheme;
• Rajiv Arogya Bhagya Scheme;
• Rashtriya Swasthaya Bima Yojana (RSBY) including RSBY for senior citizens;
• Rashtriya Bala Swasthaya Karyakram (RBSK);
• Mukhyamantri Santwana Harish Scheme.
• Indira Suraksha Yojane

Benefits of Ayushman Bharat- Arogya Karnataka Scheme

• Financial assistance up to INR 5 lakh per annum will be provided for specified simple secondary care, complex secondary healthcare treatment, tertiary healthcare and emergency healthcare to a family that comes under the definition of “Eligible Patients”. This will be on a family floater basis meaning one or more persons of the family can use the full cover of INR 5 lakh. One person can use the entire INR 5 lakh as well.

• The benefit limit for General Patient shall be 30% of Government package rates, with overall annual limit of INR 1.50 lakh per family per year on a co-payment basis.