Empanelment of Hospitals Under NHPM Starts in 2 weeks
S Singh
Shri J P Nadda, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare exchanged the Memorandum of Understanding with the State Health Ministers of 20 States marking their commitment towards the launch of the Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) at a Health Ministers conclave, here today. Shri Ashwini Kumar Choubey and Smt. Anupriya Patel, Ministers of State for Health and Family Welfare, Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO NITI Aayog, Dr. Vinod Paul, Member Health, NITI Aayog, Smt Preeti Sudan, Secretary (Health) and Shri Indu Bhushan, CEO, AB-NHPM, were also were also present at the function.
Shri J.P. Nadda emphasized that the success of the scheme hinges upon the active participation of all stakeholders including private healthcare providers. We cannot ignore the private providers contribution to the success of this programme he said.
He also said that the states are given flexibility in empanelment, rates and implementation. The center is not forcing or imposing anything on states he added.
CEO AB-NHPM, Shri Indu Bhushan gave a detailed presentation and updated the status of the implementation. He urged the States to seek approval and release RFP for insurance company hiring (in case of insurance mode) or Implementation support agency (ISA) in case of trust mode implementation. 20 states have so far signed MoU and its likely to be 25 States by the end of this month. During the conclave, model tender documents, final operational guidelines for AB-NHPM were released which are focused on beneficiary centric delivery of services while ensuring there is no compromise on the quality of healthcare services and preventing frauds. The participants were appreciative of the inclusive approach taken by National Health Agency during consultations and workshops.
A web portal for initiating the empanelment of hospitals under the mission was also launched. This marks the commencement of the implementation of AB-NHPM and takes the Mission closer to launch. Training / Demo of empanelment software will be conducted in next two weeks and States can operationalize empanelment of hospitals by 1st of July.
