By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JULY 13, 2024: UNION Minister of Health and Family Welfare Jagat Prakash Nadda reviewed the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) with senior officials of National Health Authority (NHA), here today.

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

Underlining the vision of Hon. Prime Minister of universal health coverage and benefiting the most needy and vulnerable sections of the society through AB PM-JAY, the Union Health Minister directed the officials to ensure that benefits of these visionary schemes reach the most needy and vulnerable sections of the society. He stated that 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 on a regular basis to understand in-depth the issues at hand and resolve them in unison.

Nadda stated that to strengthen and expand 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 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, 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 delivery of our healthcare services, he highlighted.

The union Health minister was also briefed about the fraud detection and prevention measures being taken by NHA, which has helped to enhance the efficiency of the scheme.

J P Nadda also reviewed the National Health Claims Exchange (NHCX). NHXC has been developed by NHA in collaboration with Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDAI). NHCX will enable paperless settlement of claims submitted by hospitals to insurance company. This will also enable IRDAI to have a dashboard view of claims settlement status in real time. 33 insurance companies covering 99% insurance market have been integrated on 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.