Crisil SME Tracker: Ayushman Bharat a blessing for SME hospitals

The scheme has helped improve health care penetration in terms of both number of people covered and amount of health care assurance, with nearly 15,224 hospitals empanelled and 26 lakh treatments

Ayushman Bharat — Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana — which completed 250 days at the end of May (it was launched on September 23, 2018), has proved a good augury for the highly fragmented small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the hospital segment. 

The scheme has helped improve health care penetration in terms of both number of people covered and amount of health care assurance, with nearly 15,224 hospitals empanelled and nearly 26 lakh treatments sought so far.

Significantly, around 49 per cent of the hospitals empanelled under the scheme are private ones, which together account for about 64 per