J P Nadda reviews Ayushman Bharat PMJAY and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

 Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, J P Nadda reviewed the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) with senior officials of the National Health Authority (NHA). 

A detailed presentation was made to the Union Health and Family Welfare minister on their salient features, the present status of the schemes and different aspects of their operationalisation by Deepti Gaur Mukherjee, CEO, NHA. The scheme has achieved significant milestones in terms of 34.7 crore Ayushman Cards, and 7.35 crore hospital admissions amounting to more than ₹1 lakh crore. NHA presented the plan to strengthen the network of empanelled hospitals and effectively engage with them.

Underlining the vision of the Prime Minister of universal health coverage and benefiting the most needy and vulnerable sections of society through AB PM-JAY, the Union Health Minister directed the officials to ensure that the benefits of these visionary schemes reach the most needy and vulnerable sections of society. He stated, “We need to ensure that challenges and any issues that are hampering the effective implementation of PM-JAY are resolved early in coordination with states”. He has directed NHA to engage and coordinate with the states regularly to understand in-depth the issues at hand and resolve them in unison.

Nadda stated that to strengthen and expand the Ayushman card creation of eligible beneficiaries, especially in the urban areas and metropolitan cities, a bottom-up approach needs to be adopted, where we create pathways and mechanisms whereby, they can be easily verified for the creation of Ayushman card. “Let us keep our systems flexible and agile to ensure the enrolment process”, he advised.   

Noting that it is important to learn from the experiences of the beneficiaries, Shri Nadda stated that smart technology tools can be employed to connect directly with the beneficiaries and collect their hospitalisation and treatment experiences.  This will help us to improve the delivery of our healthcare services, he highlighted.

Nadda was also briefed about the fraud detection and prevention measures being taken by NHA, which has helped to enhance the efficiency of the scheme. He also reviewed the National Health Claims Exchange (NHCX). NHXC has been developed by NHA in collaboration with the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDAI). NHCX will enable the paperless settlement of claims submitted by hospitals to insurance companies. This will also enable IRDAI to have a dashboard view of claims settlement status in real-time. 33 insurance companies covering 99 per cent insurance market have been integrated into the NHCX platform. Citizens will also be able to see the status of their insurance claim through the mobile.

Dr Basant Garg, Addl CEO, NHA and other senior officials of NHA and Union Health Ministry were present in the review meeting.  

Edits made by EH News Bureau