The Director General (DG) of State health services Dr Archana Srivastava has directed the officials of her department to keep her updated on the status of the Mukhyamantri Swasthya Bima Yojana (MSBY) on day to day basis.

She has also asked the officials to ensure that the MSBY card holders do not face any problem  in the empanelled hospitals. Dr Srivastava informed that a nodal officer in every Chief Medical Office (CMO) office has been appointed. This officer is providing clearance of the treatment under the insurance scheme to the hospital concerned via E-mail. The hospitals are sending the reimbursement claims of the treatment to the office of the CMOs.  She accepted that initially the number of patients getting treatment under the new plan decreased but now the number of patients is showing a considerable increase.

It is worth mentioning here that the     Bajaj Allianz general insurance company, the insurer of the MSBY scheme had pulled out its hands of the scheme on November 9, due to which all empanelled hospitals of the state refused to accept the MSBY cards. There are about 12 lakh families in the state which are covered under the scheme.  A red faced state government then decided to take the operation of the scheme in its hands and CMOs were ordered to run MSBY.

The ambitious health insurance scheme was launched by the former Chief Minister Harish Rawat in the year 2015. In the initial phase an annual insurance cover of Rs 50000 was provided to the family of the beneficiary. The scheme was later extended and the insurance cover was increased to Rs 50000 for normal diseases and Rs 1.25 lakhs for critical diseases. Both Above and Below Poverty line (APl and BPl) families are included under the scheme; the only exclusions being the Government employees and income tax payers.