Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme having central sector component under Ayushman Bharat Mission anchored in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

It is an umbrella of two major health initiatives, namely Health and wellness Centres and National  Health Protection Scheme.

The journey of Ayushman Bharat started in Jangla in Chhattisgarh.

1. Health and Wellness Centres

• Under this 1.5 lakh existing sub centres will bring health care system closer to the homes of people in the form of Health and wellness centres.
• These centres will provide comprehensive health care, including for non-communicable diseases and maternal and child health services.

2. National Health Protection Mission (AB-PMJAY)

• AB-PMJAY provides a defined benefit cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per year. This cover will take care of almost all secondary care and most of tertiary care procedures.
• The benefit cover will also include pre and post-hospitalization expenses.
• PM-JAY has sought to cover a population larger than that of Canada, United States and Mexico put together.

Implementation

• At the national level to manage, a National Health Agency has been set up. States/ UTs are advised to implement the scheme by a dedicated entity called State Health Agency (SHA).
• Several states have merged their many ongoing schemes with PMJAY to make implementation simpler for both beneficiaries and participating hospitals.
• Ex: Karnataka has merged seven different existing schemes into one, while Kerala has merged three different schemes.

Impacts-

• Ayushman Bharat has been designed on the fundamental precepts that prevention is better than cure, and that no one should fall into poverty because of expenditure on healthcare, or die, because they cannot afford treatment.
• In-patient hospitalization expenditure in India has increased nearly 300% during last ten year.
• More than 80% of the expenditure are met by out of pocket (OOP).
• Nearly 6 million families getting into poverty due to catastrophic health expenditures
• AB-PMJAY will have major impact on reduction of Out Of Pocket (OOP)
• This will lead to increased access to quality health and medication.
• timely treatments, improvements in health outcomes, patient satisfaction, improvement in productivity and efficiency, job creation thus leading to improvement in quality of life.

Present scenario-

• More than 20,000 HWCs have been made operational.
• More than five crore people have been screened for a whole range of common non-communicable diseases.
• More than 45 lakh hospital admissions have taken place for cashless treatment in more than 18,000 empaneled hospitals across the country, resulting in savings of more than Rs 13,000 crore for the beneficiary families.
• Every three seconds, a beneficiary is being treated, and the numbers continue to rise.

Role of private sector-

• More than half of the empaneled hospitals are private.
• Over 62 per cent of the treatments have been done by private hospitals.
• PM-JAY has created a massive demand for private (and public) sector services by making hospital facilities accessible to 55 crore people.
• In tier II and tier III cities, private sector hospitals are already witnessing an almost 20 per cent increase in footfall.
• Public sector facilities have streamlined their processes so as to improve service quality and amenities with funds from PMJAY.

Employment generation-

• Ayushman Bharat is set to become one of the largest drivers of jobs in the country.
• With the setting up of 1.5 lakh HWCs by 2022, an expected 1.5 lakh jobs will be created for community health officers, including 50,000 multi-purpose health workers.
• It has generated estimated 50,000-60,000 jobs in the first year itself and is expected to add over 12.5 lakh jobs in both public and private sectors over the next three to five years.
• as more people seek in-patient care, 1.5 lakh beds will be added in existing and new hospitals. This, in turn, will lead to the creation of around 7.5 lakh new opportunities for doctors, nurses, technicians, pharmacists and frontline healthcare workers such as Pradhan Mantri Arogya Mitras (functionaries who are the key interface between beneficiaries and the scheme)

Use of technology-

• A live dashboard helps in monitoring and improving performance, based on real-time data and regular analysis.
• This platform also helps states to compare their performance.
• Strong and sophisticated fraud prevention, detection and control system at the national and state level has proved to be critical for PM-JAY to ensure that frauds are largely prevented.

Way forward-

• Ayushman Bharat has provided a platform and framework for the country to accelerate its progress towards comprehensive universal healthcare.
• “Green field” states with no past experience of implementing healthcare schemes have to work harder to scale up their progress. All states will need to make sincere efforts towards providing seamless health services to the last mile.
• As the Ayushman Bharat revolution unfolds, we are optimistic that India will make sure healthcare is no longer a privilege and is available to every Indian.