SHILLONG, April 17 - The Meghalaya Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS) Phase IV would finally see swift enrollment with the procurement and arrival of registration machines in the State today. The registration process has been problematic as the State had very few enrollment machines. However, Health Minister AL Hek after a meeting said that 300 machines have arrived in the State today.
These machines are taking in information of the beneficiaries along with bio-metric information. Since there were few of these machines there have been frequent complaints from the beneficiaries about the long queues in the registration centres.
In terms of registration centres too there have been few, but Hek said that these problems would be eradicated now that the new machines have arrived. �The registration process would hopefully start in different locations of the State soon,� he said.
Another area in which the beneficiaries are facing problem is the empanelment of the private hospitals. Very few private hospitals in the State have been empanelled in the State so far as there were pending dues from the previous MHIS III.
�We have now cleared all the dues of the private hospitals and we have empanelled some of the private hospitals in the State like Nazareth, Holy Cross,� Hek said.
The State Government owed about Rs 15 crore to some of the private hospitals from the previous scheme.
The Health Minister hoped that in the next one month all the major private hospitals would be empanelled under the scheme. �The MoU would be signed with the private hospitals in the State and also those outside the State,� Hek said.
Under MHIS IV, a household would be provided medical insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh for this fiscal. There is no restriction on the number of members in a household.
