Kathmandu. The Health Insurance Board (HIB) has said that the treatment allowance of one lakh rupees provided to the insured has not been reduced.

Information Officer of the Board, Bikesh Malla, said that the insurance premium has remained unchanged. He said that the limit of treatment service of Rs 100,000 annually provided to five families under the insurance programme has been unchanged.

Information Officer Malla said that the Board has allocated 25,000 OPD services and 75,000 for hospital admission and emergency service.

Under the health insurance scheme, a family of five can avail up to Rs 100,000 worth of health care on the basis of Rs 3,500 contribution. Likewise, each member will get Rs 700 per member and Rs 20,000 per member will be added to the bill.

The Board has also urged the government to use the OPD services in accordance with the allocation of funds to ensure resources for the treatment of serious, complex and life-threatening diseases. Information Officer Malla shared, “A family of five members can avail OPD service worth a maximum of Rs 2,500 in a year.” Each member having more than five members has an additional OPD service worth five thousand. ”

At present, more than 70 percent of the health insurance budget is spent on OPD services of general patients. As a result, when someone in the family suffers from a serious illness or needs expensive surgery, the insurance amount is insufficient and the patient has to spend a large amount of money from his own pocket.

Information Officer of the Board Malla urged the people to abide by the expenditure under different headings like OPD, hospitalization and surgery with the objective of spending the insurance amount for the treatment of real patients.