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India's largest cashless health insurance scheme – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) popularly known as Ayushman Bharat and on-demand ride-sharing company Uber are partnering to facilitate free healthcare for tens of thousands of driver and delivery partners, who earn a livelihood by using the Uber platform.
As per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the National Health Authority (NHA), Uber, under its Uber CARE initiative for driver and delivery partners, will facilitate the setting up of Common Service Centres (CSCs) at Partners Seva Kendras across India, a press note released by NHA said.
CSC’s Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) at these centres will help verify eligibility and issue e-cards to driver and delivery partners for the Ayushman Bharat Scheme, which provides ₹500,000 of healthcare benefits for free secondary and tertiary treatment to each eligible family per year in government and empanelled private hospitals.
Eligible driver and delivery partners will pay only ₹ 30 to obtain an Ayushman Bharat card to provide access to the services under the scheme. They will not be required to pay any charges or premium for pre-hospitalisation, hospitalisation and post-hospitalisation expenses, which are all covered under the scheme. Each empanelled hospital is staffed by 'Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Mitras' or frontline healthcare workers to assist patients and facilitate their care at the hospital. They will also run a help desk and check documents to verify eligibility for the scheme.
Pradeep Parameswaran, President, Uber, India and South Asia said, “Driver partners are at the heart of what we do and during our engagements with them, they have repeatedly mentioned the need for a stronger safety net, especially good healthcare. Our partnership with Ayushman Bharat, the largest government healthcare scheme in the world, caters to such a requirement. It underscores our commitment not just to driver and delivery partners, but also our resolve to facilitate healthcare benefits for their family members.’’
Other initiatives
Over the past few months, Uber has launched several initiatives and forged some high profile partnerships to showcase its commitment to driver and delivery partners. In January, Uber launched the Driver Safety Toolkit, a comprehensive set of in-app safety features for driver partners. Earlier, as part of Uber CARE, driver and delivery partners were provided access to life insurance and micro loans.
Indu Bhushan, CEO, Ayushman Bharat said, “Reaching out to the last mile beneficiary lies at the core of the goal of Ayushman Bharat. Through this partnership with Uber, we hope to reach out to lakhs of people and their families in the driver and delivery community to bring them the benefits of the scheme and help secure their health and economic security.”
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