Another Big Stride For Modicare: Patients Can Now Enrol In Railway, Army Operated Hospitals 

To improve ease-of-access and on-time delivery of health services, the government is in the process of empanelling all railway and army hospitals in the Ayushman Bharat scheme, colloquially also known as Modicare. Also, hospitals operated by ESICs (Employee State Insurance Corporations) and some PSUs (Public Sector Units) will also be brought in, as reported by Times Of India (TOI).

We have already initiated talks with the ministry of railways, defence, ESIC, and department of public sector enterprises to empanel all the hospitals under them across the country. This would increase the capacity as well as give more choices to beneficiaries of Ayushman Bharat across the country,” said Ayushman Bharat CEO, Indu Bhushan.

Ayushman Bharat, which aims to provide insurance cover of upto Rs. 5 lakh to 10 crore families (or 50 crore individuals), is billed as the world’s largest health insurance scheme. The scheme, which was launched on 23 September, has already benefited 1 lakh subscribers.

While 132 hospitals are operated by the Army in the country, there are 123 hospitals working under the Indian Railways. Also, 151 hospitals are run by various ESICs. However, the government will have to bring in private hospitals into the fold too. But less than one per cent of them are NABH-accredited which is the criteria for being empanelled in the scheme.