Kozhikode: The Kerala government has started taking measures on a war footing to solve the crises in the implementation of MEDISEP, the cashless health insurance scheme for State employees and pensioners.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has convened an urgent meeting of cooperative hospitals at noon on August 27. Besides, the administration has started training private hospitals to help them overcome practical difficulties in implementing the scheme.
Many cooperative hospitals empanelled under the Medical Insurance Scheme for State Employees and Pensioners (MEDISEP) are unwilling to continue treatment under the project. They had informed the government of discontinuing the treatment under the scheme, citing that, when it came to implementation, things were "not the same" as the terms agreed upon during the signing of the deal.
The hospitals are not reimbursed for the patient's entire treatment expense. In most cases, the amount is yet to be transferred to bank accounts of hospitals even after the final nod. The promise to allot additional compensation to meet expenses, including room rent, remains on paper. Cooperative hospitals stopped providing treatment, citing all these reasons.
It is in this scenario that the chief minister directly convened a meeting of the cooperative institutions to discuss all pending issues. The Finance department has asked the Joint Registrar to collect details of all cooperative hospitals and those having in-patient facilities in all the districts. The exercise has begun.
Meanwhile, the authorities started extending direct training to hospitals to help them overcome the practical difficulties in successfully implementing the MEDISEP scheme.
The government's assessment is that the present crisis results from a lack of clarity regarding the scheme's implementation. On this basis, the administration directed the agencies entrusted with the scheme implementation to provide training, including teaching employees of empanelled hospitals how to claim the whole treatment amount.
The training programme, which started the other day, will be provided to hospitals in various districts till September 1.
