If you have a medical emergency or require urgent medical treatment, you may be able to withdraw money from your Employee Provident Fund (EPF) account.
The Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) is a retirement savings programme provided to salaried employees. In this scheme, a portion of their monthly income is deposited with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO).
The employer also contributes a fixed amount of money to the fund. The corpus develops with time and will prove useful to the employee in the future, either during their service or in the post-retirement phase.
To cover specific financial unforeseen needs, such as medical treatment, a wedding, schooling, home loan, and house construction costs, the EPFO allows members to make advance withdrawals from their accounts.
The EPFO members can withdraw funds of up to Rs 1 lakh for medical emergencies and hospitalisation from serious life-threatening diseases.
Earlier the medical advances could only be withdrawn after the estimates were provided by the hospital.
Later it was announced that a lump sum medical advance of up to Rs 1 lakh can be granted by the authority for withdrawal without the need of an estimate from the hospital or documentation.
The money that can be withdrawn is the least a 6 months’ basic wages and dearness allowance (DA) of the member or to the member’s share of contribution with interest.
EPFO had stated that in case of life-threatening illnesses, it becomes “imperative to get the patient immediately admitted in hospital in an emergency to save his/her life and it is not possible to get the estimate from hospital in such serious situations.”
However, there are certain conditions which need to be fulfilled when availing this option.
The withdrawals can be made for patients admitted to a government or Public Sector Unit like ESIC or CGHS-empaneled hospital for treatment of the disease. In the case of a private hospital, a background check would be done by EPFO.
The case will be checked by the competent authority of EPFO to decide if the advance can be made or not.
To withdraw money from your EPF account for medical purposes, you will need to follow these steps:
Step 1: Go to the e-SEWA portal of the EPFO. https://unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in/memberinterface/
Step 2: Enter your Universal Account Number (UAN), and password, and type in the captcha code to log in.
Step 3: Enter your bank account information on the new page that opens and select “Verify” to continue. This information is linked to your PF account. Now, click on “Yes” to accept the terms and conditions.
Step 4: Click the “Online Services” link and choose Claim Form-31 for illness
Step 5: After this, click on ‘Proceed for Online Claim’.
If the patient is discharged from the hospital, an employee must submit the medical bills to EPFO within 45 days to avail the facility of PF withdrawal.
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