Expensive treatment and rapidly increasing medical expenses have become a big tension for every family today. Especially after retirement, when income becomes limited, hospital expenses become heavy on the pocket. In view of this problem, the government’s pension regulator PFRDA has started a new and important scheme. Its name is NPS Health Pension Scheme. Under this scheme, people will now be able to meet treatment expenses from their pension savings.
This scheme has currently been started as a pilot project and is being tested under the regulatory sandbox. That is, right now it has been implemented on a small scale, so that later it can be launched in the entire country.
What is NPS Health Pension Scheme?
NPS Health Pension Scheme has been specially designed for medical needs. The money deposited in this scheme can be used in future for doctor’s fees, medicines and hospitalization expenses. In simple language, now your pension amount will be useful not only for retirement but also in times of illness.
According to PFRDA, this scheme is completely voluntary. That means it is your choice to join or not. This scheme has been started as a separate category scheme under the National Pension System (NPS).
PFRDA answered important questions
- Ability- Any citizen of India can join the NPS Health Pension Scheme. If someone does not already have a common scheme account, then along with opening the health pension account, this account will also have to be opened.
- Charges- All types of charges and fees related to this scheme will be decided by MSF and these will be clearly explained. According to the circular, these fees will also include the fee paid to the Health Benefit Administrator (HBA).
- Contributions- The subscriber can deposit any amount as per his wish in this health pension scheme as per the rules of NPS.
- investment- The money deposited in the scheme will be invested as per the prescribed investment rules, so that it can grow over time.
- Transfer money from common scheme account- Subscribers above 40 years of age, except government employees and employees of government companies, can transfer up to 30% of their deposited amount from their common scheme account to NPS Health Pension Account.
- Partial withdrawal for medical expenses- For treatment, whether it is seeing a doctor or getting admitted to a hospital, the subscriber can withdraw partial amount from his account. At any time, up to 25% of your deposited money can be withdrawn. There is no limit on the number of withdrawals and there is no waiting period. However, first time withdrawal will be possible only when at least Rs 50,000 has been deposited in the account.
- Facility to withdraw full amount for treatment of serious illness- If the hospital expenses for the treatment of any serious illness exceed 70% of the total amount in your account in one go, then in such a situation the subscriber will be allowed to withdraw the entire deposited amount (100%) so that there is no interruption in the treatment.
- Claim Settlement- The amount withdrawn will be sent directly to the hospital or treatment related institutions (HBA or TPA), who will make the payment based on the bill and documents related to the treatment. If any amount is left after the treatment expenses are deducted, it will be sent back to the subscriber’s common scheme account.
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