Social Justice
Supreme Court on Free Testing of Covid-19
- 14 Apr 2020
- 3 min read
Why in News
- The Supreme Court modified its April 8, 2020 order to clarify on free testing for Covid-19.
Key Points
- Private labs would continue to charge the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) rates of up to ₹4,500 for tests from people who can afford to pay.
- Free testing for Covid-19 shall continue to be made available to the poor eligible under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.
- Free testing would also be made available to any other category of economically weaker sections of society as notified by the government from time to time.
- The Supreme Court directed the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare to identify beneficiaries among the weaker sections of society.
- This includes workers belonging to low income groups in the informal sectors and beneficiaries of Direct Benefit Transfer who can be made eligible for free testing.
- It also directed the Ministry to issue appropriate guidelines in this regard within a week.
Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya
- PM-JAY offers a sum insured of Rs.5 lakh per family for secondary care (which doesn’t involve a super specialist) as well as tertiary care (which involves a super specialist).
- It is an entitlement-based scheme that targets the beneficiaries as identified by latest Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) data.
- Once identified by the database, the beneficiary is considered insured and can walk into any empanelled hospital.
- The insurance cost is shared by the centre and the state mostly in the ratio of 60:40.
- Packaged rates (Rates that include everything so that each product or service is not charged for separately):
- They also mention the number of average days of hospitalization for a medical procedure and supporting documents that are needed.
- They are flexible, but they can’t charge the beneficiary once fixed by the hospitals.
- The scheme also has prescribed a daily limit for medical management.
- The National Health Agency has been constituted as an autonomous entity under the Society Registration Act, 1860 for effective implementation of PM-JAY in alliance with state governments.
- The State Health Agency (SHA) is the apex body of the State Government responsible for the implementation of AB PM-JAY in the State.
