Railways Introduces Cashless Health Care Scheme For Ex-Employees

New Delhi: The Railways has rolled out a cashless health care scheme for its retired employees. The Cashless Treatment Scheme in Emergency (CTSE) aims to provide comprehensive health care facilities to its beneficiaries through in-house health institutions, supplementing with referrals to recognised hospitals whenever necessary.

"Cashless Treatment Scheme in Emergency is another important step. Life expectancy has increased, so many health problems have evolved. This scheme would improve health care facilities for railway employees," Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said after launching the CTSE.

The CTSE beneficiaries include retired employees and their dependent family members. Large number of retired beneficiaries live in the newly-developed suburbs of various cities. These parts of the city are often far away from the established railway health institutions.

In emergency situations, precious time is lost in travel. In order to provide immediate care to retired employees in emergency, the CTSE facility will be utilised in empanelled hospitals for retired employees and their dependent family members.

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A web-based system of communication between private hospitals and railway authorities has been developed wherein identity of the beneficiary shall be established using biometrics stored in Aadhaar (UIDAI) server, eligibility shall be determined using Railway Data Base and emergency shall be verified by a Railway Medical Officer based on the private hospital's clinical report.

The whole system is online and even the bill processing shall be online. This scheme shall provide help to retired railway employees at the time of need and will also have a morale boosting effect on serving employees.

At present, the scheme has been rolled out in four metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, and based on the experience of this pilot, the scheme may be extended to the entire country.

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