Ayushman Bharat or the National Healthcare Protection Scheme (NHPS) will provide healthcare services through health and wellness centres, a Niti Aayog member said today.
While making a presentation on the scheme at an interactive session here, Niti Aayog member Vinod Paul said that secondary and tertiary care services will also be offered under NHPS through public and empanelled private hospitals by means of a transparent mechanism.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the healthcare scheme on Saturday last week with the opening of first health centre at Bijapur in Chhattisgarh.
In his address at the session, Paul provided details of NHPS, elaborated on enrolment of beneficiaries, informed about the empanelment criteria of service providers and led particular emphasis on the role of tier II & III cities in the successful implementation of NHPS, a CII release quoting him said.
Paul highlighted the need of an adequate infrastructure in these cities because of their proximity to the people who are expected to be served under this scheme.
Paul informed that the government is working on finalising the packages. Awareness is being created to help estimate the fair costs for various services, he said.
However, Paul emphasised that the model of healthcare service delivery should be changed to high volume with low margin. He also invited suggestions for expanding healthcare infrastructure in the underserved areas.
A robust system of fraud control and grievance redressal for beneficiaries as well as healthcare providers will be implemented by the state governments based on specific guidelines for public and private healthcare providers.
Through NHPS, the government resolved to help create an affordable, efficient and trust-driven system with participation of state government and public as well as private institutions.
During the interaction organised by CII Northern Region, representatives from the healthcare industry comprising of small 10-bedded hospitals to 500 plus bedded hospitals highlighted the issues of transparent processes, timely payments, package rates in consonance with the interest of stakeholders as some of the areas which need to be focused upon while implementing NHPS.
The Ayushman Bharat scheme has twin missions -- first, creating a network of health and wellness centres to deliver comprehensive primary healthcare close to the community, and second, providing insurance cover to 40 per cent of India's population, that is most deprived, for secondary and tertiary care, including for instance, hospitalisation costs.
It aims at covering 10 crore poor and vulnerable families and provide a cover of Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.
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