NHA To Empanel Private Hospitals To Provide Treatment Under PMJAY: The Government of India has taken upon them to ensure that essential healthcare facilities are made available to all the citizens.
This gave rise to the establishment of the Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) scheme in September 2018.
The primary objective of the Ayushman Bharat Yojana scheme is to make healthcare services freely available to the poor and vulnerable families in India. Under this scheme, the eligible families will receive health coverage of up to INR 5 lakh every year.
The beneficiaries of the policy can avail the healthcare facilities at any of the nearest empanelled hospitals. Generally, all the government hospitals are empanelled under the PMJAY scheme. These hospitals are liable to offer free healthcare services to the Ayushman Bharat beneficiaries.
However, this year, the National Health Authority (NHA) is planning to expand the coverage of the scheme. It is planning to empanel private hospitals under the PMJAY scheme. The reason to do so is to provide advanced treatment for critical health conditions such as cancer and health ailments.
With the establishment of a new mechanism under the PMJAY scheme known as the Hospital Empanelment Module (HEM) Lite, beneficiaries of the policy that are suffering from critical ailments will be able to avail high-quality services at the nearest private hospital.
As of now, the NHA has expressed the empanelment of the private hospitals on a temporary basis. This will strengthen the healthcare supply provider under the PMJAY scheme. The authorities have started reaching out to the different states, hospital associations, and healthcare industry with a proposal to onboard the private hospitals temporarily.
Today, the PMJAY Scheme offers over 1500 healthcare packages, including secondary and tertiary care. The empanelled hospitals are liable to treat the beneficiaries of the plan and cannot charge additional money for the said treatment.
The scheme is said to offer basic healthcare services to over 10 crore families (which is 50 crore individuals) across the country. The people eligible under this plan do not have to pay a single rupee to avail the healthcare benefits. The premiums are solely taken care of by the State and Central Governments.
But before you go to avail the healthcare packages under the PMJAY scheme, check whether you are eligible to do so. You can check the eligibility as follows –
- Visit the official PMJAY government website
- Select ‘Am I Eligible’
- Enter your contact details and generate an OTP (One-Time-Password)
- Select your state and search by name/HHD number/ration card number/mobile number
- Based on the results, you can verify whether you and your family are eligible under the PMJAY scheme
Alternatively, you can contact the Empanelled Health Care Provider (EHCP) or Ayushman Bharat Yojana call centre to check your eligibility. Once you confirm that you and your family are eligible under the plan, proceed to the Ayushman Bharat registration process. Upon successful registration, all the beneficiaries will be given an ecard with which they can avail the benefits of the scheme.