The Maharashtra government has decided to set up a dedicated corpus fund to cover treatment costs exceeding the ₹5 lakh per-family limit under the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Jan Arogya Yojana and Ayushman Bharat scheme, offering relief to patients requiring expensive heart, liver, lung and bone marrow transplants, said Dr Manish Shrigiriwar, chairman of Nagpur’s divisional organ transplant committee.
Since July 1, 2024, the expanded scheme, run by the State Health Assurance Society, has covered 1,356 procedures across 34 specialities, but the ₹5 lakh cap left many transplant surgeries out of reach, forcing patients to bear lakhs in out-of-pocket expenses.
Under the new mechanism, 20% of every approved claim amount received by the Society will be channelled into the corpus fund. The money will support nine categories of costly treatment: heart, lung, and combined heart-lung transplants; liver transplant; various forms of bone marrow transplant; and advanced valve procedures TAVI and TMVR.
A newly formed Special Treatment Assistance and Empowerment Committee will approve treatments, determine financial aid, and oversee fund disbursement. Officials say the move marks the state’s first dedicated financing structure for costly and rare-treatment