Cashless treatment for mishap victims

Accident victims on national highways will get a cashless treatment subject to a monetary ceiling of Rs 30,000. The ministry of road transport and highways is tying up with insurance companies and network of hospitals empanelled on Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) to provide immediate emergency intervention in case of a crash.

Union transport secretary AK Upadhyay said, “We are in the process of talking to the stake-holders such as state governments and insurance companies. We will identify an insurance company to provide cashless treatment for up to Rs 30,000.”

The ministry plans to kick start the pilot project in four to five states soon. Elaborating the scheme, Upadhyay said, “The private hospitals lying in the vicinity of the highways will be empanelled to CGHS to provide cashless medical treatment to the victims in the first 48 hours.”

The idea is that life should not be lost due to a dearth of trauma response infrastructure. The move could also be a part of the corporate social responsibility of the private sector hospitals.

Apart from cashless treatment in the critical hours of the accident, trauma response infrastructure is also being set up by the ministry. A 24X7 single toll free number for ambulance, standard operating protocols to handle accident victims and roping in of volunteers are some of the important features of the scheme.

In addition, the National Informatics Centre will create a software for recording the reports of accidents taking place on a particular stretch. It will also monitor movement of accident victims to hospital, treatment during the first 48 hours and settling of bills.

“These data will be further used for analysing the safety records of a particular road or stretch, and necessary design intervention will be taken up to make it less accident prone,” said Upadhyay.