7 Most Frequently Asked Questions About Ayushman Bharat and Their Answers

Q 1. What is AB-NHPM?

Ans. AB-NHPM (Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Mission) is one of its kind national insurance schemes initiated by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi to ensure that underprivileged poor citizens of India can receive health cover. Ayushman Bharat aims at providing a vulnerable and poor population of 10 Crore people with universal access to good hospital services without worrying about financial issues.

Q 2. What kinds of health services are included in AB-NHPM?

Ans. The AB-NHPM programme includes the following health services:

• Follow-up care
• Daycare surgeries
• Newborn children services
• Pre & post hospitalisation expenses

Q 3. What are the major benefits of AB-NHPM?

Ans. Some remarkable benefits of the AB-NHPM scheme are:

• It provides an insurance cover of up to Rs. 5 Lakhs per family/ per year to cover secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation expenses.
• It covers all pre-existing conditions from day 1 of implementation of the scheme in respective States/UTs.
• Any eligible beneficiary across the country can avail its cashless benefits from any empanelled public or private hospital.
• The transfer of funds to State Health Agencies (SHAs) will be done online directly through an escrow account to ensure SHAs receive the funds on time.

Read Also: Ayushman Bharat Yojana – A Complete Guide to National Health Insurance Plan

Q 4. Who is eligible for the scheme?

Ans. The scheme covers over 10 Crore poor and underprivileged families in India. These families must be identified as either deprived rural families or occupational categories of urban workers families under the latest data of Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC). The state government and ANMs/BDOs/BMO of the relevant area have a list of eligible families. To receive the benefits of the scheme, families must be on the SECC list. Also, families having an active Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) card as of 28 February 2018 are covered. There is no upper cap on the age of beneficiaries and their family size.

Q 5. Is there any additional cost to be paid by beneficiaries to get the insurance cover?

Ans. No. Each eligible beneficiary can avail benefits of free secondary and tertiary hospital care services under AB-NHPM at all public hospitals as well as empanelled private hospitals. The paperless and cashless access to health services will be provided to the eligible beneficiaries under AB-NHPM. Information about all empanelled hospitals will be available shortly government website and mobile app. Beneficiaries can also contact at the helpline number, i.e., 14555.

Q 6. Do beneficiaries need to enrol for the scheme to avail its benefits?

Ans. No, you don’t need to enroll for the scheme as Ayushman Bharat is an entitlement based mission. All government-identified deprived and poor families listed under the SECC database are eligible for the scheme.

Q 7. Will beneficiaries get a card?

Ans. No. They won’t get any physical card; however, a dedicated family identification number under AB-NHPM will be allotted to each eligible family. Also, they will be allotted an e-card at the time of hospitalisation.