By Admin 
CGHS Big Change: The government has made a big change in the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), a health scheme for central employees. Under this, changes have been made in the old package rates. This step of the government is expected to provide relief to about 46 lakh CGHS beneficiaries as well as private hospitals.
What is the new change?
Actually, the government has released new rates of 2,000 medical packages, which will be applicable from October 13. Earlier, for a long time, CGHS beneficiaries had been complaining that they were not able to get cashless treatment from hospitals. For this, one has to bear huge treatment expenses from one’s own pocket and also have to wait for months for the refund.
Private hospitals say that the current fixed rates in the package are outdated and are not sufficient to meet the medical treatment expenses as of today. With the increase in the package rate, the patient will no longer have to pay for the treatment himself and will also get the facility of cashless treatment. However, the government says that the new rates will change depending on the quality of the hospitals, category of cities, type of hospital and ward of the patient.
Big step taken after 2014
The last major change in CGHS package rate was in 2014. Meanwhile, small things were changed, but even after more than 10 years had passed, no comprehensive reforms were implemented. In August this year, the Central Government Employees Union (GENC) submitted a memorandum to the government.
It was said that lack of cashless treatment facility is causing financial crisis for employees and pensioners, especially in case of medical emergency. After this, the government took this important decision. CGHS 2000 medical package is not a single package, but it includes about 2,000 types of medical treatments under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS). Since the old rates were not sufficient as per today’s treatment, private hospitals were reluctant to give cashless payment to the patients.
Did anything new change?
The new rates of Rs 2,000 medical package are based on the quality of the hospitals like city category (Tier-I, Tier-II, Tier-III) and NABH accreditation.
- Package rates in Tier-II cities will be 19 percent less than the base rate.
- Rates in Tier-III cities will be 20 percent less than the base rate.
- NABH accredited hospitals will provide services at base rate.
- Non-NABH hospitals will get 15 percent less rate than the base rate.
- Super-specialty hospitals with more than 200 beds will get 15 percent higher rates.
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