1.4 cr. cashless treatments provided under Ayushman Bharat so far: Government

More than 1.4 crore cashless treatments worth over Rs. 17,500 crores have been provided under government’s flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) so far, Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare said on Thursday.
The scheme has so far helped people saving approximately Rs. 35,000 crores, he said. AB-PMJAY launched on 23rd September 2018, provides a cover of up to Rs. 5 lakhs per family per year, for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization to over 10.74 crore vulnerable entitled families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries). PM-JAY provides cashless and paperless access to services for the beneficiary at the point of service. The scheme covers 1,592 procedures under various health benefit packages with defined rates. Over 24,000 hospitals and health facilities providers have been empanelled across the country to provide healthcare services to the beneficiaries.

The health minister also reviewed the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM). “The National Digital Health Mission was launched to expand access to timely, affordable, safe healthcare for all 1.3 billion citizens wherever they are and whenever they need. The NDHM will digitalize healthcare by creating a country-wide digital health ecosystem that will enable patients to store, access and consent to share their health records with doctors and health facilities of their choice,” Harsh Vardhan said adding that NDHM will empower millions of citizens without smart phones or those in remote tribal areas facing connectivity issues to still avail healthcare through its offline modules.

NDHM is a mission to harness technology to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of healthcare delivery in India, through better access to healthcare data. According to the government, a national digital health ecosystem will be created through the provision of a wide-range of data, information and infrastructure services, duly leveraging open, interoperable, standards-based digital systems while ensuring the security, confidentiality and privacy of health-related personal information. NDHM seeks to create a national digital health infrastructure starting with the building of Health IDs, Unique Identifiers for doctors and health facilities, Personal Health Records, and telemedicine and e-pharmacy, among other components. Mint