171 Hospitals de-empanelled under Ayushman Bharat Scheme

On January 3, 2020, around 171 hospitals were de-empanelled by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for committing fraud. The Ministry had also imposed a fine of Rs 4.5 crores. The FIRs were lodged on 6 hospitals in Uttarakhand and Jharkhand states.

Highlights

The Anti-Fraud units detected fake e-cards and lodged FIRs in the corresponding states. It is the responsibility of the sate health agency to create an e-card and add additional family member under the scheme if any. The Anti-Fraud Unit detected that the private hospitals were fraudulently performing these government reserved procedures.

Earlier similar cases were detected by the unit in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab and penalties were imposed.

Anti-Fraud Units

The Anti-Fraud Units operate under the guidelines provided by National Health Agency operating under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

National Health Agency

The National Health Agencies were set up in order to implement India’s flagship scheme “Ayushman Bharat”. The National Health Authority is the successor of National Health Agency.

Ayushman Bharat

The scheme aims at covering 10 crore poor families providing health coverage of 5 lakh rupees per family. The scheme is recently being criticized widely for the increased fraudulent activities by private hospitals. At least 697 fake cases have been registered in Uttarakhand alone. However, the scheme unlike its previous scheme Rashtriya Swasthya Bhima Yojana uses robust IT infrastructure to locate suspicious surges.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2020