The Andhra Pradesh government is soon launching the much awaited Employees Health Scheme (EHS) aimed at providing comprehensive health care to all government employees, pensioners and their family members in the state.

The Scheme, proposed last year, has been waiting for the nod of the government and the Aarogyasri trust, as the modalities of the scheme were under extensive discussions among all the stake holders like employees, hospitals and the government.

According to sources from Aarogyasri trust, the scheme is to be launched within a few days as everything has been cleared from the government as well as the hospitals side.

Once this scheme is launched about 14 lakh families of both employees and pensioners will be able to avail cashless medical treatment in lieu of the present medical reimbursement system.

Earlier discrepancies arose between the Aarogyasri trust and the private nursing homes association with regard to the payment on same lines as Aarogyasri patients. The private hospitals association had demanded more than 70 per cent hike from the government for treating employees on same lines as that of Aarogyasri patients. “Now we have resolved all the issues and very soon we are launching the EHS covering all the government employees, pensioners and their families offering free medical care,” informed a senior officer at Aarogyasri Trust.

For this purpose the state government had already started roping in about 350 network hospitals (NWH) in the state. A health care provider to be enrolled among the network hospitals should have a hospital or nursing home in Andhra Pradesh established for indoor medical care and treatment of disease and injuries and should be registered under Andhra Pradesh Private Allopathic Medical Establishments (Registration & Regulation) Act and Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act.

A health care provider who fulfills the empanelment criteria of the Aarogyasri Trust will become eligible for empanelment with the trust. An empanelled health care provider shall be referred as a network hospital. Further there will be a single agreement between Aarogyasri trust and NWH for payments under the scheme as per the package prices for the listed therapies.

A 50 bedded hospital intending to get empanelled is expected to have one or more specialties of general surgery, orthopaedics, OBG, paediatrics, general medicine, ENT, and ophthalmology among the basic specialties.

A multi speciality hospital desirous of empanelment is expected to have facilities for one or more super speciality services such as cardiology and ct surgery, medical and surgical gastroenterology, paediatric surgery, plastic surgery, neurology and neurosurgery, nephrology and urology among the super specialties.