Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Mission
Ayushman Bharat is a National Health Protection Scheme announced in the budget 2018 and launched today, i.e. 15th August, 2018 by Narendra Modi (Honourable Prime Minister of India) and Red Fort witnessed in the same, which will cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) providing coverage up to 5 lakh rupees per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospital.

Salient Features:
It is proposed to set up Ayushman Bharat National Health Protection Mission Council (AB-NHPMC) at apex level Chaired by Union Health and Family Welfare Minister for directions and fostering coordination between the Centre and States.

• States would need to have the State Health Agency (SHA) to implement the scheme.
• Benefit cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per year.
• Benefits of the scheme are portable/applicable across the country to take cashless benefits from any public/private empanelled hospitals.
• Scheme with entitlement decided on the basis of deprivation criteria in the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) database.
• To control costs, the payments for treatment will be done on package rate (to be defined by the Government in advance) basis.
• One of the core principles of the mission is to co-operative federalism and flexibility to states.
• To ensure that the funds reach SHA on time, the transfer of funds from Central Government through Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission to State Health Agencies may be done through an escrow account directly.
• In partnership with NITI Aayog, a robust, modular, scalable and interoperable IT platform will be made operational which will entail a paperless, cashless transaction.

Requirements:

• Bank Account with Aadhar seeding
• Identification details
• Family details along with structure
• Age and address proof documents
• Income details
  

Registration Charges:
As per the latest update from the government of India, the registration process will not incur any charges.

Implementation Strategy:
Ayushman Bharat National Health Protection Mission Agency (AB-NHPMA) would be put in place at the apex and States/UTs would be advised to implement the scheme by a dedicated entity called State Health Agency (SHA). They can either use an existing Trust/Society/Not for Profit Company/State Nodal Agency (SNA) or set up a new entity to implement the scheme.

Major Impact:

• Increased benefit covers to nearly 40% of the population, (the poorest & the vulnerable)
• Covering almost all secondary and many tertiary hospitalizations. (Except a negative list)
• Coverage of 5 lakh for each family with no restriction of family size
• This will lead to increased access to quality health and medication. In addition, the unmet needs of the population, which remained hidden due to lack of financial resources will be catered for. This will lead to timely treatments, improvements in health outcomes, patient satisfaction, improvement in productivity and efficiency, job creation thus leading to improvement in quality of life.

Expenditure Involved:
The expenditure incurred in premium payment will be shared between the Central and State Governments in specified ratios as per Ministry of Finance guidelines in vogue. The total expenditure will depend on actual market determined premium paid in the States/UTs where Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission will be implemented through insurance companies. In States/UTs where the scheme will be implemented in Trust/Society mode, the central share of funds will be provided based on actual expenditure or premium ceiling (whichever is lower) in the pre-determined ratio.

Number of beneficiaries:
Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission will target about 10.74 crore poor, deprived rural families and identified occupational category of urban workers’ families as per the latest Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) data covering both rural and urban. The scheme is designed to be dynamic and inspirational and it would consider any future changes in the exclusion/inclusion/deprivation/occupational criteria in the SECC data.

States/Districts covered
Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission will be rolled out across all States/UTs in all districts with an objective to cover all the targeted beneficiaries.