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The Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) on Monday said it has taken steps, such as allowing beneficiaries to avail medical consultation from empanelled hospital in case ESIC infra is beyond 10 km and deciding to itself run all newly constructed hospitals, to improve delivery of services to its beneficiaries.
During its 183rd meeting held here on Sunday under the chairmanship of Minister of State for Labour and Employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar, ESIC has decided to take several significant decisions to improve its delivery of medical services and other benefits to workers, the labour ministry said in a statement.
All newly constructed hospitals and those approved in future will now be run by the Corporation itself unless the state government insists to run the hospital, it added.
This has been done in view of demand from both workers and employees, and with the objective to provide better medical services to the beneficiaries, it said.
It has also been decided that in areas where ESIC infrastructure is not available within a radius of 10 km, the ESI beneficiaries will be allowed to avail medical consultation for OPD services directly from a hospital empanelled with ESIC or with Ayushman Bharat scheme without the need for referral from an ESI dispensary or hospital.
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In such cases, if admission for indoor treatment is required, the empanelled hospital will obtain time-bound permission from the ESI's approving authority through an online system.
Super speciality services in cardiology, nephrology, urology and oncology will also be strengthened in select ESIC hospitals in Delhi-NCR, and will be extended to other ESIC hospitals across the country in a phased manner.
ESIC will engage professionals with specialisation in hospital management or hospital administration or health care administration for maintenance, housekeeping, patient assistance, patient safety and other ancillary activities in its hospitals across the country.
The Corporation will also engage the services of project management consultant for monitoring and facilitating execution of hospital and dispensary construction projects of ESIC from the stage of concept plan till the commissioning of the project.
It has also been decided to extend the relaxed conditions and the enhanced benefit of 50 per cent of the average per-day earning up to a maximum of 90 days under the Atal Beemit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana. This is for insured workers who became unemployed due to COVID-19 induced lockdown for a further period of six months i.e. up to June 30, 2021.
The eligible workers can file their claims on the ESIC website with the mobile number, Aadhaar and bank details.
Medical services to the insured workers and their dependants under the ESI scheme are provided primarily through hospitals and dispensaries run by the state governments.
Currently, there are 1,520 ESI dispensaries and 159 hospitals across the country. Out of these, 45 dispensaries and 49 hospitals are directly run by ESIC, while the remaining are run by the respective state governments, it added.
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