ISLAMABAD:The Federal Cabinet has approved the Ehsaas Catastrophic Health Expenditure Policy and Ehsaas Tahafuz through circulation.
Through this policy, Ehsaas Tahafuz, has been approved, which is a fund-based health financing system. Ehsaas Tahafuz will complement the insurance-based Sehat Sahulat programme to ensure the universal health coverage and protect people from Catastrophic Health Expenditure.
Extensive two-year-long work has been done on Ehsaas Tahafuz which is country’s first shock-oriented precision safety net. Ehsaas Tahafuz is primarily premised on coverage principles to complement government’s existing Sehat Sahulat programme and plug in any gaps.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister Dr Sania Nishtar while chairing the review meeting of Ehsaas Tahafuz on Thursday at Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division, said that Ehsaas Tahafuz will run as per the parameters outlined in this policy to complement Sehat Sahulat to ensure efficient use of public resources and to build synergies between complementary programmes.
According to a press release, the programme works in partnership with public hospitals that identify patients requiring financial support. Patients identified are then assessed by Tahafuz against an eligibility criterion. For eligible patients, hospitals are directly reimbursed for pre-defined treatment costs. Ehsaas Tahafuz system is paperless, mobile-phone centered and technology-based. Ehsaas represents a global innovation in health financing where a patient-level purchasing system has been developed at scale.